By Bridget Wentworth STAFF WRITER 
RYE, N.Y. -- This time, Valeri Kamensky wants to come back and stay back.  

He's tired of saying, "My arm hurts," he's tired of watching his first season with the Rangers slip by without him. He's on the team, but he feels like a stranger.  

In the first game of the season, a 1-1 tie with the Edmonton Oilers, Roman Hamrlik fell on Kamensky during the last shift of the game, and Kamensky hasn't been right since. The broken arm he had surgically repaired last season was fractured again, and the past few months have been a frustrating game of starting and stopping, playing and not playing. Recurring pain in his arm, for which doctors have not been able to give a clear cause, kept taking Kamensky out. The longest he was able to remain in the lineup was five games in late October -- he has missed a total of 23.  

Kamensky doesn't want to miss any more. He would like to start his season anew tonight against the Islanders. He said he was close to playing in the 3-1 loss to Buffalo on Tuesday night but decided against it. He felt good after practice yesterday and will skate this morning in hopes of feeling enough strength in the arm to give himself the go-ahead to play.  

He doesn't feel more pressure to come back just because the Rangers have struggled a bit in their last few games. Kamensky would be anxious to play again even if the Rangers were in the midst of a 10-game winning streak and didn't exactly need his services. 

"It doesn't matter for me," he said. "I want to come and help the team any time, when we win, when we lose. I like to play hockey, I enjoy this game. I think this team is very good for me because the guys play hard and I see everybody trying their best. I want to help them."  

Kamensky had a lot of painful experiences on which to draw while he recovered from this latest setback.  

In October 1991, just before his first season with the Quebec Nordiques, he suffered a compound fracture of his left leg in a Canada Cup exhibition game after he tried to go around a defending player and went leg-to-leg with him instead. Kamensky missed 57 games.  

A year later, he broke his thumb and missed three games, and days after that, he broke his right ankle when he stepped in a rut on bad ice at Le Colis?e in Quebec City. He missed another 47 games.  

Last season, he missed the last 15 games of Colorado's season, and eight playoff games, after a slash broke his right arm. He recovered in time to play 10 postseason games and put up nine points on four goals and five assists.  

Kamensky knows what pain is, and he also knows what it takes to get over it.  

"I know how to fight (back) from an injury. It's hard, it's hard mentally," he said. "But I work hard, and I want to come back at 100 percent. Your team is playing, and you're doing nothing. I'm 33 years old, and I don't want to lose 80 games. It's very important for me now."  

Doctors have assured Kamensky that the platework he had done on his arm last season is not the cause of his recent troubles. The repair job was done correctly -- the stress fracture, and the soreness and lack of strength that have gone along with it, don't seem to have anything to do with that.  

"It just happened, you know? It's just bad luck," Kamensky said. "If I'd played the first game and nothing happened, it would be (fine). In training camp, it was perfect. It was feeling strong. It's bad luck.  

"Now, it's much better. It's been going slowly, but it's better every day."