Mike Milbury is a man of many hats. Some know him as the Boston Bruin who jumped into the MSG stands to beat a fan with his own shoe. Other knows him as an NBC sportscaster. But most know him as one of the worst general managers of the National Hockey League's history, let alone the New York Islanders'.
There are questionable deals, bad deals and then there are the deals Milbury made. He was simply a train wreck as the Islander's GM from 1999-2006. He traded young player after young player with no clear-cut direction in sight.
That being said, here is a look at Milbury's five worst moves as the Islanders' general manager.
1. Milbury trades Zdano Chara, Bill Muckalt and a first-round pick (Jason Spezza) to the Ottawa Senators for Alexei Yashin - Yashin was coming off an awful playoff with the Senators. He only potted one assist in four games against the Toronto Maple Leafs after racking up 40 goals and 88 points in the regular-season. He was also rumoured to have attitude issues. So obviously Milbury had to trade a prized high-end draft pick which the Sens used to draft Spezza, a defenceman who later blossomed into an all-star, and a strong defensive forward for the then 28-year-old.
Yashin was a nightmare on Long Island. He did score 75 points in his first season there, but he was inconsistent, a poor role model for the younger players, and couldn't see eye to eye with their head coach Ted Nolan. But hey, it's not as though Milbury could have foreseen this from how Yashin handled himself in Ottawa
The Islanders current GM Garth Snow loved inheriting Yashin's 10-year $90-million conact from Milbury. In fact, he loved him so much he was willing to buyout his contract to get the Russian native off his team. Not to mention, he had to take a $2.024 cap hit against the Islanders' salary cap to do so.
2. Milbury trades Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen to the Florida Panthers for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha - Islanders fans will always remember June 24, 2000 as the day Milbury traded two of their top young players: Luongo and Jokinen. The trade simply didn't make any sense, but then again, that wasn't exactly unprecedented for Milbury.
Parrish did have some strong years with the Islanders, scoring 20 or more goals in four of his five seasons with the club. Kvasha, however, was a different story as he peaked with a 51-point season in 2003-04.
Luongo and Jokinen went on to do much greater things than the pair traded for them. Although he's in a tough spot behind Corey Schneider with the Vancouver Canucks right now, Luongo has proven he is a world-class goaltender. Jokinen, meanwhile, racked up four 30-plus goal seasons in Florida.
3. Milbury drafts Rick Dipietro first overall in 2000 - Rule No. 1 for having a top-10 draft pick, don't waste it on a goaltender. Precedents clearly show it's extremely tough to tell the future of a 18-year-old puck stopper. The proof is in the pudding as only seven of the 30 starters in the NHL today were selected with a first-round draft pick. In addition, some of the top netminders in the league, such as the Nashville Predators' Pekka Rinne and the New York Rangers' Henrik Lundqvist, were selected with a seventh-round pick or later.
I guess Milbury didn't know about the risk of drafting a goalie with a high pick when he selected Rick Dipietro with the first pick of the 2000 draft. But it's not like he was paid a lot of money to know the ins and outs of running an NHL club. Oh, wait a minute.
To Dipietro's defence, if it wasn't for suffering injury after injury, he probably would have turned out to be a strong starter in the league; however, since he is made out of glass, we will never know what could have been.
Three players in particular standout as better options than Dipietro in the draft: Columbus Blue Jackets star Marian Gaborik, Minnesota Wild sniper Dany Heatley and Philadelphia Flyers power-forward Scott Hartnell. Gaborik and Heatley were two of the top snipers in the league in their prime. And Hartnell has been a consistent top-six forward who brings a physical element to his game throughout his career.
4. Milbury trades Bryan Berard and a sixth-round pick to the Toronto Maple Leafs for Felix Potvin and a sixth-round pick - After trading Luongo to the Panthers, Milbury had to go out and find a new goaltender. So he dealt Berard, the first-overall pick in the 1995 draft and winner of the 1997 Calder Trophy, to the Leafs for Potvin, who peaked in Toronto with a 2.87 average and a .910 save percentage in 1995-96.
Potvin never found his grove in New York. In his short 33-game stint with the Islanders, he posted a .892 save percentage.
It seems if it wasn't for Berard suffering an eye injury, he would have blossomed into an all-star defenceman. But because of the injury, he sat out the entire 2000-01 season, and couldn't find consistency in his game with only one eye with sight after his return.
Nevertheless, at the end of the day, this trade is still a head-scratcher because of the unlimited potential Berard possessed at the time of the deal.
5. Milbury trades Bryan McCabe, Todd Bertuzzi and a third-round pick to the Vancouver Canucks for Trevor Linden - Linden simply never panned out in New York. In his lone full season with the club, he only scored 47 points in 82 games.
Meanwhile, McCabe went on to flourish as a puck-moving blueliner with the Leafs, posting a 19-goal 68-point season in 2005-06. And Bertuzzi was a consistent point-producer for the Canucks, scoring 50 points or better in five consecutive seasons in Vancouver.
