Henrik Lundqvist raised his stick in the air  and shouted to the rafters as the Rangers shutout the Capitals 1-0 to win in Game 6 at the Garden Sunday.

Lundqvist had 27 saves and saved the season by stopping everything that came his way.

Derick Bassard scored the only goal of the game.

The two teams– who clearly hate each other– will clash one more time on Monday, the winner advances in the playoffs,  loser goes home to nurse his wounds.

Actually, judging by the number of hits and penalties, both sides have enough cuts and bruises to go around.

Hiroki Kuroda (5-2) pitched into the eighth inning to help the Yankees sweep the Kansas City Royals with a 4-2 win at Kaufmann Stadium on Sunday.

It was his fifth win in six starts.

Kuroda got some help in the form of a two run homer by Robinson Cano in the third.

For Cano, it was a little bit of redemption after failing to hit a single shot in last year’s Home Run Derby in the very same ballpark.

Mariano Rivera trotted out to the mound for the final inning, and his final regular season appearance in KC.

The end result: his 15th save in 15 chances, and his 29th straight save against the Royals.

Meanwhile, the Yankees are again alone at the top of the AL East, one game ahead of Baltimore and two games ahead of Boston.

And you were worried.

Neither are power plays, if Game 5 of the playoffs against the Capitals is any indication.

The Rangers couldn’t hold a 1-0 lead and lost to the Caps 2-1 in OT.

They now trail 3-2 in the series and are one game from elimination.

Game 6 is at the Garden on Sunday.

Game 7 is in DC.

Stat of Doom: The Rangers have never won a game 7 on the road.

It was one year ago when Mariano Rivera collapsed in a heap, having torn his ACL while shagging fly balls in the outfield during batting practice.

With a dozen saves already under his belt, and #13 just a few hours away, Rivera and his teammates were able to joke about that day, setting up police tape and a chalk outline where Rivera went down in center.

The mood remained light during Friday night’s series opener against the Royals.

Lyle Overbay led the charge with a 2-run homer, two doubles and 5 RBIs on his 4-for-5 effort.

Ichiro Suzuki also homered in the Yanks 4-run 5th.  He and Jayson Nix scored three runs apiece.

The runs came in bursts, four in the second inning and five more when the Yankees batted around in the 6th.

Phil Hughes (2-2) was tagged for six runs, and was nowhere near as consistent as his last four starts, but was lucky enough to lead with a four-run lead in the bottom of the 6th.

Follow that up with Shawn Kelly’s stunning relief appearance, dropping seven Royals in a row, six of them by strikeout, and you end up with  Joe Girardi earning his 500th win as Yankee manager.

With $80 million worth of Yankee players on the DL and the Yankees still only one game out of first place, nothing about this season makes sense.

Wells went 3-for-4 with a home run, two RBIs, two runs scored, a stolen base, and he scored the go-ahead run in the top of the 9th on the way to a 3-2 Yankees win.

As a reward, he got to play third for the final three outs– a position he’s never played.  Ever.

As the saying goes, the baseball has a way of finding you.

After Mariano Rivera got the first out of the inning, Wells stabbed a grounder and made a running throw to first to get the second out.

Rivera gave up a base hit and then one routine fly ball later the game was over.

Afterwards, Wells couldn’t stop talking about his infield debut, calling it “one of the cooler moments of my career.”

He seemed much more excited when he took to Twitter, posting:

As for Rivera, he recorded his 12th save in 12 chances.

Phelps had a decent night, giving up only two runs in six innings.

Of course, those two runs came off a crushing Todd Helton homer.  But other than that, not bad.

He also became the first Yankees pitcher to bat eighth since Don Larson in 1957.

Joe Girardi’s plan was to give the Yanks’ hitters better match-ups later in the game.

It kind of worked.  The number 8 and 9 hitters went 1-for -7, but that 1 was Brennan Boesch’s infield single that scored Wells in the 9th.

So, mission accomplished.

Eduardo Nunez left the game with a stiff rib cage.

And the Yankees lost the rubber game 5-4 against Oakland on Sunday.

Let’s just bunch this whole thing together.

The Knicks lost game one to the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Semi-finals.

The Rangers and down 2-0 to the Capitals.

Even the Isles lost to the Penguins to slip to 2-1 in their playoff series.

At least the Mets got rained out.

And Monday is just around the corner.

One night after being completely, totally and disastrously humiliated by the worst team in the American League, Kuroda (4-1) helped the Yankees rebound with a 7-4 win over the Houston Astros Tuesday Night.

Kuroda– who had trouble finding his groove at first– pitched seven shutout innings, giving up just four hits, before watching the bullpen sputter on its way to getting the final six outs of the game.

After David Robertson and Shawn Kelley choked in the seventh and eighth innings, giving up four runs between them.

Mariano Rivera came in to strike out the last remaining batter and earn his tenth save of the season.

Ten saves in April.  And he’s retiring.

Luckily Rivera loosened up before the game withJoba Chamb…uh…Joba?  What the hell are you doing? Back away from the  Hall of Famer.

And then there’s Travis Hafner, who had three RBI singles to again lead the Yankees offense.

By the way, and Lyle Overbay homered too

For Kuroda, it was his fourth win in a row.

Oh, and Kevin Youkilis went on the 15-day DL (sshhh, everything else is going so well).

They still managed to humiliate the Yankees, beating them 9-1 in The Bronx, snapping their four game winning streak.

Almost no part of this game was good.

Andy Pettitte (3-2) never made it out of the fifth inning, getting tagged for three runs in the first inning, seven overall.

This is the Astros for trip to Yankee Stadium since joining the AL.

Austin Romine was kind of terrible, despite the 10-story graphic boasting he was voted “Best Defensive Catcher” in the minors three years in a row.

After the game, both Pettitte and Romine admitted they had communication problems (you think?), something they’ll work on before their next pairing.

Romine also went 0-for-4 in his first major league game of the season.

He was called-up when Francisco Cervelli fractured his hand against Toronto over the weekend.

One bright spot, the only bright spot, newcomer Vidal Nuno (who came up with Romine) pitched three solid innings, giving up four hits and striking out two.

So, there’s that.