Rocha and the Rodent aren't the only two who disagree on whether last night's win over the Islanders was a good thing or a sign of continuing troubles. Observe:

Newsday -- Say, look at this glass! It's half full of water! "The Rangers played like a team with four days' rest and a renewed purpose."

Still, Arthur Staple does temper his enthusiasm with the following quote from Lindros: "We have five minutes to go and a three-goal lead and we made it interesting. I thought we played 55 minutes of real solid hockey . . . but it seems to be a common theme around here that it's never over till it's over, and we have to change that."

The Star Ledger -- Yo, what up with this glass of water? It's half empty! "Some could argue that a victory attained by any means is good enough, but the Rangers nearly gave two points away in the last five minutes by allowing the Islanders to score twice to make it close."

Larry Brooks in The Post took his hyperbole pills this morning because his glass runneth over... "They played tenacious, straight-line, north-south hockey at the Garden last night, and they played it with enough emotion and discipline to beat the Islanders 4-3, a score that was far closer than the match itself, the visitors getting a pair of goals in the final 4:21 after having been outplayed decisively until then."

Others are more on the fence, such as The Journal News. An alternate title for this article might be "Good Thing It Was The Islanders -- They Suck Worse Than Us." Bad: "For the first 55 minutes last night, the Rangers played with the intensity and precision they often show against the Islanders. But they were mistake prone over the final five, as they too often are against most other teams." Good: "We just looked nervous,'' Islanders coach Steve Stirling said. "I don't think we were physically intimidated. We just looked intimidated in this building.''

Maybe the Fishsticks were intimidated by Mike Dunham. According to The New York Times, he roxors! They point out that the Islanders can not beat us when he is in net. They may as well not even try.

Meanwhile, snap back to reality. The Daily News laments that we can't play the Islanders every night. Poti sums up the feeling of many others when he says, "We were all over them tonight. It's kind of a shame that (to do that) we have to play against the Islanders, a team that everybody in here loves to play against, that we get so jacked up for. It's a shame we can't come out with that effort every night. But I think if we could somehow solve that problem, we'd be fine." And if you could all score 50 goals on the season, you'd be fine too, but that's neither here nor there.

All right -- I'm thirsty now so I have to go.

-- Rightbug

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