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Rangers Things Have Happened.

And then, on the other side of Madison Square Garden, we have the Rangers.

I'm going to pretend that newest acquisition Chris Drury wears #23 as a salute to Jason Phillips, rather than his childhood hero, Don Mattingly because it works better for my gushing.

I REALLY REALLY REALLY like that move (and I'm not even factoring in the addition of Scott Gomez). Throughout last season, I made the Brendan Shanahan-Keith Hernandez comparison in Rangers discussions with friends and colleagues but have since discovered that the Drury-Hernandez comparison is even better. Shanahan will have to settle for being compared to Gary Carter (Jaromir Jagr is Darryl Strawberry).

Drury is nicknamed "Captain Clutch" for good reason. While not a power hitter or scoring machine, Drury is best at coming through when it counts. He has 15 career postseason game-winning goals, four of which were walk-offs (amazingly, one more than he's had in regular-season play), not to mention the last-second game-tying goal in an eventual Sabres win against the Rangers in Game 5 of their second-round series.

By all accounts, he is a great leader with championship-winning experience from his days in Colorado. Yes, I know he's got 35 million reasons to be happy about being here, but the talk is that this is his dream situation. He's wanted to be a New York Ranger since he was a little kid pitching Trumbull, Connecticut to the Little League World Series title (gonna have to look to see if he's had any Little League walk-offs).

Those who know me well know that I rarely get this enthusiastic over player moves. I tend to be much more pessimist than optimist. But this was a maneuver I heartily endorse. Not only did the Rangers get better, they weakened two of their premier conference rivals in the process.

Let me close by saying that I think it's kind of funny that as things get messier with the Knicks, they get Messier with the team with which the Knicks share a home.

True MetFANs know...That WFAN celebrated its 20th anniversary this weekend. The station began on July 1, 1987, the day after a Mets walk-off win. Since July 1, 1987, the FAN has had the opportunity to talk about 158 Mets walk-off wins.

Comments

Ceetar said…
WFAN also started the year after the Mets won the World Series, and they haven't won since. Jinx much?
5:10 PM
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