Congratulations to the New Jersey Devils for defeating the Anaheim Mighty Ducks 3-0 in the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals last night. They played a wonderful game all around. I know most people will blame this on the Ducks' long break (they were off for eleven days, waiting for the Devils to finish off their series against the Ottawa Senators, who I despise for knocking my Islanders out in the first round), but the comments of Gary Thorne while he was calling last night's game were worth thinking about: in response to Jean-Sebastian Giguere's proclivity to give up way too many rebounds as he seemed to have no idea where the puck was after it hit him, Thorne offered that Giguere looked a little bigger than usual, that perhaps he was wearing more padding and therefore couldn't feel the puck as well as he normally could.

Kudos also to NJ's Jeff Friesen for a terrific game, and a terrific playoff run so far (in the Ottawa series he tied the great New York Islander Mike Bossy for most game-winning goals in a series, with three).