All anybody’s talking about in the New York area is the Islanders’ first regulation win over the Rangers (though Jimmy Rollins predicted it on Monday). You can’t walk down the street without somebody stopping you and asking all about the hockey team from Long Island. Will they get on a roll? Is John Tavares the real deal? Islanders, Islanders, Islanders! Everybody’s forgetting all about the bad start of the two local basketball teams, and does anybody even know that the Yankees are in the World Series this year? All the Islanders-all-the-time talk is really taking the pressure off the other local teams.

Here at Hot Stove, we know that the Yankees are in the World Series again, as you can’t get anything by us. The Bronx Bombers paid their $200 million entry fee into the Series, setting up a rematch of the 1950 Fall Classic. And with so many off-days, it seems like there are about 59 years between games in this postseason. In the Series we’ve already seen Cliff Lee nonchalantly put the Bombers’ bats to sleep, …

The Rangers ended their three-game losing streak by beating Phoenix last night, 5-2, winning the game for former Ranger announcer Bill “The Big Whistle” Chadwick. “We’re dedicating our season to the announcing legend. So much of my youth was spent watching the Rangers on channel 9, listening to the antics of Chadwick and his partner, Jim Gordon, that for a while there, I thought Chadwick was my father, and my real dad was just some guy from the neighborhood who sat around the living room drinking vodka all the time. We had to win this game for The Big Whistle or I’d never forgive myself,” said captain Chris Drury. (Ok, he didn’t come close to saying that; I said it to myself while I was riding on the subway this morning.)
The Blueshirts were going the wrong way the last week or so, but last night they turned things around and put in a steady performance. They fell asleep after taking a 4-0 lead, and got …

It was a brutal week for the New York football teams, as the Giants got killed and the Jets fell to lowly Buffalo and lost Kris Jenkins for the rest of the season. Even the hockey teams mixed in some debacles with a few wins. And something bad probably happened to the Mets even though their season is long over.

But even after last night’s loss, the Yankees are sitting pretty, with a 3-2 lead in the series and heading back home. With a budget as high as our country’s deficit, the Yanks had two options this offseason: Use their money to cure the U.S. economy or buy a whole bunch of free agents. They chose the latter, and it’s working out just fine (well, for them). Unfortunately, the one aspect of the playoffs that has stood out the most is the atrocious umpiring. The horrible umpiring in this year’s postseason is unprecedented, but there are things out there that are actually worse, if you can believe it. …

In the midst of the Rangers’ seven-game winning streak, coach John Tortorella stated, “We’re teetering on going the wrong way here.” And man was he right. The Rangers did more than teeter against San Jose – they plummeted, crashed and burned. Their poor play finally caught up with them. They can come out on the winning side against a team like Toronto while being outplayed, but not against an upper-echelon team like the Sharks. As the third period went on, I thought I was reliving the Giants-Saints game. How did Drew Brees end up with a hat trick?
The Rangers are taking way too many penalties. In the first nine games of the year, they’ve been shorthanded a whopping 49 times, which is third worst in the league. The good news is that their penalty killing is again one of the best in the league. But it’s hard to control the game and score goals when player after player is marching off to the penalty box. …

Now that the Great Balloon Hoax of Aught-Nine is over, we can concentrate on sports again (CC Sabathia’s uniform is so big and baggy, it could probably be filled with helium and flown across the country, too). This past week in New York sports, the Yankees swept the Twins and now have to take on those pesky, team-of-destiny Angels, the Giants killed the Raiders to stay undefeated, the Jets suffered their second consecutive loss, the Rangers kept on winning, the Devils heated up, but the poor Islanders still couldn’t manage to notch their first victory of the year. The most bizarre moment of the week, though, was the Mickey Rourke sighting on the Giants sideline. And Kevin Bacon showed up at the Garden for the Knicks preseason home opener. Is the cast of Diner making the rounds of the local sports teams to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the movie?

Besides being at the Knicks game, Bacon could also be seen hiding in the Yankees dugout on Friday because, unbeknownst to A. J. Burnett, that was Shrevie’s wife, donned in curly …

The season is still very early, but it looks like the Rangers have found themselves a legitimate first line. Marian Gaborik, Brandon Dubinsky and Vinny Prospal fit together like other great trios of the past – the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, the Mod Squad, Richie, Ralph and Potsie, Cream and, of course, Charlie’s Angels (well, maybe not them – or any of the others come to think of it).

Gaborik is the first top-talent game-changer the Rangers have had since the days of Jaromir Jagr (seems like a long time ago now, doesn’t it?). But Jagr was finicky and quirky, and had trouble fitting with other linemates (except Michael Nylander). Gaborik, Dubinsky and Prospal have clicked since game one. And they’re producing on a nightly basis. Gaborik is all he was cracked up to be (I’m crossing my fingers that he doesn’t get injured as I write this), netting five goals to go along with four assists in six games. He has a point in every game, …

The Giants kept on rolling this week, the Jets lost to a good Saints team (but traded for troublemaker Braylon Edwards), hockey season has started, with mixed results for the three local teams, the Mets held a day-long press conference on Monday to announce the firing of two coaches, and the $200-million juggernaut that is the Yankees steamrolled over the Twins in the opening game of their playoff series. Here are some fun facts about the Yanks and Twins:

CC Sabathia eats more food in one year than the farmers of Minnesota produce combined.

Brett Favre was warming up in the Twins bullpen in the seventh inning of Wednesday’s game.

George Steinbrenner gave an inspired speech to the team down in Tampa after the Yankees’ final regular season game. It was short, yet fiery: “Where the hell is my damn calzone!”

After defeating the Tigers in their dramatic one-game showdown on Tuesday, the Twins immediately called Darryl Strawberry, Lenny Dykstra and Keith Hernandez to find out the most effective way to destroy a plane on a flight to New …

It’s only three games into the season, but we’re already seeing differences between last year’s Rangers team and this season’s version. A (relatively) new coach and an overhauled roster will do that. Here are seven contrasts between the Tom Renney 2008-09 Blushirts and John Tortorella’s 2009-10 edition.
1. Only one minute and 24 seconds into Monday’s game against the Devils, Tortorella called a timeout and ripped his team a new one. And the players actually responded, by going out, working hard and winning the game. Renney would have politely implored his players to at least act like they were trying, and then been just as politely ignored, resulting in a 6-1 shellacking.
2. The safe, boring, sit-back-and-wait-for-bad-things-to-happen style of Renney is gone. And when the aggressive, all-hands-on-deck attacking mode that Tortorella favors isn’t working that night, the team is showing it can adapt, like they did in New Jersey, settling into a blue-collar battling approach.
3. The defensemen are scoring. Last year the D couldn’t score …

Glen Sather magically and miraculously got rid of Scott Gomez this summer and signed Marian Gaborik. But, much like going into last season, this year’s Rangers are ruled by “ifs” and question marks. Sather overhauled the team yet again – does he ever have a plan? (“This isn’t plans one through eight in outer space, this is plan nine! This is the one that worked!”) Maybe this is the team John Tortorella wants, though, with his faster, attacking style of play. Last season Sather tried to replace the offense of Jaromir Jagr, Brendan Shanahan and Martin Straka with Nikolai Zherdev, Markus Naslund and other assorted characters, and it didn’t quite work out. The 2009-10 Rangers are thin on defense and have a number of unproven forwards – the only constant is the goaltending, with Henrik Lundqvist and Steve Valiquette back again.
Gone But Not Forgotten: Gomez, Zherdev, Naslund, Lauri Korpikoski, Nik Antropov, Fredrik Sjostrom, Blair Betts, Colton Orr, Paul Mara, Derek Morris and Erik Reitz.
This …

Ranger great Brian Leetch was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame today (along with other first-time-eligible players Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille). And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer, classier guy. Leetch played parts of 17 seasons for the Blueshirts, serving as captain from 1997-2000, and finished his career with Toronto and Boston (we don’t need to get into that now). He was one of the best American-born hockey players ever to play the game, and was also one of the greatest defensemen ever to lace up the skates in the NHL.

His list of awards and accomplishments is long: Of course he’s a Stanley Cup winner, Conn Smythe Trophy winner (first and still only American to win that award), two-time Norris Trophy winner (’92 & ‘97), Calder Trophy winner (’89), two-time First Team NHL All-Star (’92 & ‘97), three-time Second Team NHL All-Star and he played in nine All-Star games. He is one of only five defensemen in NHL history to record over 100 points …

This wasn’t your everyday seven-game series. We saw biting, suspensions, water-bottle-throwing, unruly fans, cheap shots left and right (by both teams), close games and blowouts – well, maybe that is a typical seven-game series in the NHL. But when it was over, the better team won. The question isn’t: How did the Rangers blow a 3-1 lead, but: How did the Capitals not sweep? Washington has so much more talent than the Rangers that the series shouldn’t have been this close. But at the same time, what happened to the Rangers in games five and six? No Sean Avery in game five, no John Tortorella in game six, no big effort and no defense in either. If the Blueshirts would have played like they did in game seven in those games, they probably would have come out with a series win.

The Rangers’ fast start to the season raised expectations for them, and the same thing happened in this series. They surprised everyone by leading the Eastern Conference the …

This week’s games came in a variety pack. New York saw a 22-4 game along with two 1-0 ones all on the same day, a walk-off infield single, a walk-off 14th-inning home run, a loss with 00.2 seconds left on the clock and two goaltending performances for the ages. The Yankees recovered from their embarrassing loss and ended up 4-1 since last Friday. The Rangers took a surprising 3-1 lead in their series, the Devils are up 3-2 and the Mets are teetering on the edge of despair.

Winner

Henrik Lundqvist: All hail the King. “He’s awesome. We love him. He’s the king,” gushed Paul Mara (who apparently stole Joaquin Phoenix’s beard). Lundqvist shut out Washington on Saturday, and after letting in four goals on Monday because his defensemen accidentally showed up at the old Madison Square Garden, played the game of his life in Wednesday’s victory. He made a playoff career-high 38 saves while standing on his head, his toes, his elbows and anything else he could stand on to save the Rangers. He’s …