April 6, 1986

In game 79, on the night before the final day of the season, the Rangers finally nailed down their playoff spot. And they could say they did it themselves. Scoring two goals in the final two minutes of the third period, the last by James Patrick with only 16 seconds remaining, the Rangers played the Washington Capitals to a 4-4 tie here tonight. It was the point they needed to secure fourth place in the Patrick Division over the Pittsburgh Penguins.

THE controversial plan to widen the New Jersey Turnpike has spawned a broader debate about the adequacy of transportation planning in the state. Much of the public criticism of the proposed $2 billion turnpike project has focused on the costs to the environment and communities through which the road would cut a wider swath. But some critics also have questioned the way in which the New Jersey Turnpike Authority made the decision to widen the roadway. They see the process as evidence of inadequate transportation planning.

CONNECTICUT would become the first state in the country to use renters' security deposits to help solve its housing problems, if a proposal before the state legislature becomes law. Legislators are expected this week to decide the fate of the novel proposal, which would create a revolving loan fund out of all security deposits paid in the state to build and repair low- and moderate-income housing. It would be the first law of its kind in the country. Other states have found uses for excess interest on security deposits, but not the principal.

THEY found Dwight Gooden pitching in Hillsborough High School in Tampa, Fla. They found Darryl Strawberry hitting in Crenshaw High in Los Angeles. They spotted Mookie Wilson at the University of South Carolina, and Rick Aguilera at Brigham Young, and they noticed Wally Backman at Aloha High in Oregon. But the Mets found most of their other players working for somebody else's baseball team, and they got them by trading: George Foster from the Cincinnati Reds, Keith Hernandez from the St. Louis Cardinals, Gary Carter from the Montreal Expos, Howard Johnson from the Detroit Tigers, Ron Darling from the Texas Rangers' farm system and Sid Fernandez from the Los Angeles Dodgers' farm system. They even got Jesse Orosco as a minor leaguer in 1978 when they traded Jerry Koosman to the Minnesota Twins.

AS Long Island towns prepare to build garbage-burning incinerators that must replace landfill dumps by 1990, a state watchdog commission has raised questions about whether local governments, based on past performances, can undertake such projects without wasting millions of dollars in public money. A recent report by the State Commission of Investigation said such cost-inflating factors as bid-rigging, labor racketeering and featherbedding were ingrained in the construction industry. But beyond that, the commission cited two Nassau County projects as evidence that governmental mishandling has ''an enormous potential, as great if not greater than criminality, to undermine the interests of the public and the government in the construction of capital facilities.'' The ill-fated Multi-Town Solid Waste Management Authority, it said, gave ample warning of what happens when public works projects are consigned to unqualified political appointees. The authority, set up by state legislation in 1977 to build a resource recovery plant that would burn the garbage of western Suffolk towns, went bankrupt by 1983 after incurring debts of $8.2 million and never breaking ground.