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SEAN Avery is thinking of the future now, but last Wednesday while lying in a bed in the Intensive Care Unit of St. Vincent's Hospital suffering internal bleeding from a lacerated spleen he'd sustained at the Garden hours earlier in Game 3 against the Penguins, the Rangers' winger had no such luxury.
"I was writing my will that first night," Avery told The Post by phone yesterday. "I was in bad shape. I was nervous. I was trying not to think about it.
"I thought I was done."
Avery, who is expected to make a full recovery, was released from St. Vincent's on Sunday. He'll report for the Rangers' break-up meetings today in the wake of the second-round five-game elimination by Pittsburgh that was sealed by Marian Hossa's offside-enabled OT goal Sunday afternoon.
"I feel 1,000 times better now; I feel great," said Avery. "I was checked today, there are no infections, my blood is good and I'm due for another exam on Thursday. I feel like I could play tonight, but unfortunately there's no game.
"The major thing for me is not to get hit again in the short-term. I guess I'd better watch myself when I'm outside walking that nobody crashes into me or that I don't get hit by a car while I'm crossing the street."
Avery pinpointed the cause of the injury as the check he threw on Brooks Orpik 3:30 into the first period of what would become a 5-3 defeat.
"That's exactly when it was; I knew I had done something, I knew something was wrong, but I just didn't know to what extent," said Avery, who played the remainder of the game.
"I thought that I probably had torn an abdominal muscle, but then after the game when I told the doctors that I had a shooting pain in my shoulder, the doctors knew immediately what it was and I went right to the hospital with Dr. [Andrew] Feldman."
Avery said he was in "such bad shape the first couple of days," that he had no idea that one publication reported that he'd suffered cardiac arrest and was found unconscious in a Manhattan hotel room before being rushed to the hospital at 3:30 the morning following the game.
"Nobody said anything, but then it kind of funneled through," said Avery. "To make up lies, it just shows the credibility of the people who would put that stuff out there and then try to stand by it even when it's proven false.
"That anyone would print something that's just false . . . I don't know why people have the need to lie about me."
Avery, who was unable to negotiate a contract extension during the season, is eligible to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1. There's a substantial gap between what he'll be able to command on the open market, and what GM Glen Sather has been offering.
mickeydennis 
