Rangers 4, Islanders 1: Two days after having their dramatic rally ruined in a shootout, the Rangers crushed the Islanders, 4-1, and continued their surge at the season's most critical times. They drew Wade Dubielewicz in goal -- Rick DiPietro had missed too much time following the death of his grandmother -- but most goalies would have had trouble Thursday. The Rangers led this one 89 seconds into the game on a Brendan Shanahan goal. Sean Avery may have broken off contract negotiations. but he's also breaking off great slapshots from the slot. Scott Gomez also scored, and Avery enjoyed the stat-padder of all stat-padders, an empty-netter in a game already decided. Sean Bergenheim had the Islanders' only goal. more ›

• Rangers 5, Sabres 1: Five days off, but only 10 seconds to score. Sean Avery got the Blueshirts off to a great start and they finally got the taste of Sunday's overtime loss to Washington out of their mouths. "I don't think we expected that great of a start," said Brendan Shanahan. He has to be telling the truth. Who sits at his locker lacing up his skates and says, "I think we'll score within nine seconds"? No one, that's who.
• Islanders 4, Thrashers 1: The Rangers took 10 seconds to score, but the Islanders denied the Thrashers a goal until 77 seconds remained in this one. Miroslav Satan, Ruslan Fedotenko, Marc-Andre Bergeron and Sean Bergenheim all scored for the Islanders. Don't look now -- actually, it's safe to look -- they've won three straight. Up next: San Jose on Monday. It's at home, so the team won't get lost.
• Devils 3, Senators 2: Jason Kidd was in the NBA's skills challenge, but, even if his trade has fallen through, he still doesn't feel like a true local player. With him as the only such representative in Saturday's NBA festivities -- if not playing defense were a skill, Eddy Curry would have been there -- the Devils had to show off their talent. Arron Asham had as many goals as he has R's in his first name, and Martin Brodeur had 37 times as many saves as he has B's in his last. The Devils won despite finishing a 10-round shootout the night before.

Trent Hunter got things going with a goal at 17:42 of the first. The Flyers tied it up in the second, but the Islanders took the lead and built it on two beautiful goals. Jeff Tambellini took advantage of a bad Philadelphia turnover to put the Isles back in front. Sean Bergenheim got a semi-breakaway off of a feed from Trent Hunter to make it 3-1. Philadelphia cut it to 3-2, but Rusian Fedotenko put the game out of reach with his 10th goal of the year. more ›