New York has had its share of great announcers, goofy announcers, pro’s pro announcers and just plain bad announcers. For this list I’m going to use the late ’60s/early ’70s as the cutoff date. Mel Allen and Red Barber were legends, but they weren’t my legends. I’ve also cheated. In some cases I’ve listed announcing teams and in others, just an individual. So here is my top-10 best announcers/teams of the last 40 years. And no, you won’t find Suzyn Waldman, John Sterling or Fran Healy on this list.
10. Jim Kaat: The 16-time Gold Glove winner and three-time All-Star pitcher was stuck in a booth with a hodgepodge of Yankee shills from 1994–2006 (and a one-year stint in 1986). Always classy, he stood out by telling it like it is, and had a humble, non-shtick way about him.
9. Mike Breen: New York native Breen …

Well, it’s been weird.  That’s the best way to describe this first day of free agency in the NHL.  In New Jersey, where GM Lou Lamoriello began the day by retaining free agents Bryce Salvador and Jay Pandolfo, the next order of business was to bring back a pair of heroes from the team’s late-90s glory days.

Shortly after announcing that the team had signed former-Dev Brian Rolston to a 4-year, $20 million deal, the Devils put the final touches on a one-year, $2.5 million agreement with center Bobby Holik.  Not exactly five-years and $45 million, but still good work if you can get it.

“Bobby is still one of the top size-strength forwards and will add size and strength to our center ice,” said Lamoriello.

I don’t recall “size and strength” being a glaring weakness during their five game series loss to the Rangers this past postseason, but evidently Lou felt it was, and who am I to question Lou?

The signing of Rolston is much …

The Hudson River rivals agreed to a pair of four-year, $20 million deals today with defenseman Michal Rozsival returning to the Rangers and Brian Rolston returning to the team with which he began his career.

In the duel of duplicate deals, the Devils come out on top here, adding a player who has scored 30+ goals in each of the last three seasons to their anemic offensive, not to mention a player who they already know will thrive in their system.

Meanwhile, Michal Rozsival hits pay dirt with the Blueshirts.  Here’s what I had to say on the prospect of Rozsival returning back in early May:

One has to imagine that Rozsival will be seeking a sizable raise over the $2.3 M he earned this past season, especially given the fact that [Christian] Backman is pulling in $3.4 next year. Putting aside my personal feelings on Rozsie, the defenseman played first-pair minutes all season-long and appeared in at least 80 games for the Blueshirts for the third consecutive year. He’s scored …

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In 2006 the Rangers entered the playoffs for the first time since the 1996/97 season. They were very familiar with their first round opponent and knew they had to come out and play tough hockey. Even Jaromir Jagr came out hitting.

But they couldn’t match the Devils’ toughness or intensity. This was obvious to everyone when Jagr separated his shoulder throwing a hit on then Devil Scott Gomez during the first game of the series. For the remainder of the short series, they were swept in four games, they were left with no fire power.

This time around things were much different. The Rangers stacked up against the Devils in almost every way. They had better offense, better defense, and even the better goalie. They also had one other important ingredient which made the difference in the series; they had Sean Avery.

Avery made a big difference in a number of ways and most important were his dogged attacks on Martin Brodeur. …

Just two seasons ago the Devils embarrassed the Rangers when they swept them in the first round of the playoffs. Yesterday the Blue-shirts got a little pay back when they beat the Devils in five games to advance to the Atlantic Conference Semifinals.

Even though the Devils had home ice advantage that didn’t matter as the Rangers made themselves at home at The Rock by beating them in all three road games.

“I think obviously the first two on the road, winning those first two was really sending a statement,” said Sean Avery. “We have to give a lot of credit to our Ranger fans, coming into the Devil’s building it didn’t really seem like a road game. It really felt like a home game. They were so loud.”

Having so much support on the road paid off for the Rangers especially after Brian Gionta scored the first goal of the game just under five minutes in. The Rangers were able …

New York, meet Marc Staal.

Last Sunday he hurried a shorthanded clearing attempt only to turn the puck over to tie the game in the second. Then the Devils bounced a puck off his skates into the net for the winning goal in overtime.

Wednesday night Staal made up for all of that when he stopped a clearing attempt by the Devils to blast a slapshot from the point to net the game winner.

“I was thinking shoot right away,” Staal said. “I tried to shoot it to the far post and it just went in.”

Staal has played an integral part for the Rangers against the Devils so far. In just his first year in the league he has logged the second most minutes out of any defenseman on the team while playing solid two-way defense the entire time. The goal, his first career playoff goal, put the Rangers up 4-3 before they eventually won the game 5-3.

The Rangers also saw big contributions in this game …

With the Rangers on a 5-on-3 powerplay Sean Avery parked himself in front of Devil’s goalie Martin Brodeur to distract and keep him from seeing the play. On Monday the league ruled that strategy is not allowed.

This is a common tactic which forwards employ in order to gain an advantage while their team is on offense. The difference between the typical play and Avery’s performance was that the agitator had his back completely turned on the play, ignored the action on the ice, and focused solely on keeping Brodeur from seeing the action.

“Nobody should have to play hockey with a stick an inch from your face,” Brodeur said. “But it wasn’t a bad play. While he was doing it, I couldn’t see anything. The two misses were just luck, I couldn’t see a thing.”

Brodeur and Devils’ head coach Brent Sutter both complained to the refs about the play. They replied that while it was conduct they didn’t condone they didn’t know …

The Devils are back in it. By taking what would be called a high scoring game between the two teams, New Jersey has pulled to within one game as they were finally able to solve Henrik Lundqvist Sunday.

Not since the first round of the 2005-06 playoffs have the Devils been able to score more than two goals off of Lundqvist. They beat him because of a pair of lucky bounces that went off the Rangers own skaters.

Early in the first period Sergei Brylin got credited with a goal that bounced off of Ranger centerman Blair Betts’ stick. The Devils got lucky again 6:01 into overtime when John Madden sent the game winning goal toward the net that went in off of Marc Staal’s skates to give them the game 4-3.

The Devils also got a pair of power play goals by Patrik Elias and Zach Parise. Elias tied the game at two in the second period and just …

Right before our very eyes we are seeing why Henrik Lundqvist is one of the highest paid goalies in the NHL. In game two he took the Rangers on his back as the Blueshirts beat the Devils 2-1.

Not only did the Devils lose game two, they lost home ice advantage the rest of the way and, in Zach Parise’s case, lost some teeth too.

Lundqvist stopped 26 of 27 shots to beat the Devils for the ninth time all season. He has allowed just 11 goals over that span. He certainly came through for the Rangers including stopping multiple good chances in the first period with the Devils swarming the net.

He did allow one goal during the third period to John Madden, but it was too little too late for the Devils who were outscored in the third period yet again.

Before Madden’s goal Jaromir Jagr broke out for the Blueshirts with the game tied at zero in the third period. Jagr found an open hole …

The Rangers signed Scott Gomez to a rather large contract last July to help them win big games. On Wednesday he fulfilled that obligation in game 1 against the Devils as he was a key component in leading his team to a 4-1 victory.

Gomez racked up 3 assists, but the team owes a lot to goalie Henrik Lundqvist as well. King Hank made 26 spectacular sprawling saves and allowed only one goal to put the Rangers up 1-0 in the first round series.

Going into the third period tied at one, Ryan Callahan picked up a short handed goal. He was able to fool Martin Brodeur, who was playing the puck unaware the young winger was right behind him and Callahan was able to chip the puck in to put his team up 2-1.

Late in the third period the Rangers were able to put the Devils away as Sean Avery forced a turn over then continued to park himself in front …

The Devils will have the home ice advantage against the Rangers in the upcoming first round series after they held on to beat them 3-2 in a shootout Sunday.

The Rangers had to win in regulation or else they would lose home ice. After falling behind 2-0 in the first they battled back to tie them at 2 early in the third period. Neither team could finish the game before overtime despite an extreme attempt by the Rangers when they pulled Lundqvist with the game tied.

Once the game went into overtime the Devils had home ice locked up and the final score no longer mattered. They did manage to avoid a season sweep when Patrick Elias beat Lundqvist to finish off the shootout.

Now get ready for a possible 7 more games as exciting, or more, than this one. The schedule is as follows:

Game 1 Wednesday in New Jersey starting at 7 p.m.
Game 2 Friday in New Jersey starting at 7 p.m.
Game 3 …

The Rangers will have a shot at redemption as they are officially set to face off against the Devils in the first round of the playoffs, but first the teams will battle this Sunday for home ice advantage.

Most Ranger fans wish they could forget the last time these two teams met in the playoffs. I am of course referring to the 2005-2006 season when the Devils swept the Rangers in the opening round.

The Rangers and the Devils are battling for fourth place Sunday afternoon. Although that looked likely it wasn’t confirmed until the Sabres shutout the Bruins 3-0 which left the Bruins two points behind the Rangers with 94 total.

Currently the Devils are in fourth place with 97 points. That’s just one more than the fifth place Rangers who have 96 points. For the Rangers to finish in forth place they would have to beat the Devils in regulation. If they won in overtime the Devils would still …