Isles History (Milbury) Why We Are Here Now

As everyone says, don’t get me started on Milbury:

http://www.paperstreetbrigade.com/blog/?p=15351

But he probably has the worse 5 drafts in a row if you look at 2000-2005. He had no patience when it came to Prospect Development. His FA signings were almost all older guys whose end were near instead of taking a chance with a youngster. The Potvin For Berard trade and Dumont for Nabokov trade deserve mentioning too.

Even beating out the likes of Steve Phillips which is all you really need to know.

Isn’t it amazing how when you fail so epically that you can never hope to land another GM job again, you somehow become an “expert.” That is until you start tagging interns.

The accumulated bone-headedness of Milbury is just too painful to recount. He and Isiah Thomas should get together to see which one could sink an organization faster.

Milbury had no idea what he was doing. He developed a team only to destroy it the next year. Selecting DP and then trading Luongo made no sense. Most of us would have kept Luongo and then added a winger like Heatley instead. That toothless bastard would have looked great in an Islander Jersey next to Spezza.

Yashin, okay, we really overpaid for a player no one wanted. We gave up premium talent for a player who was at best a second line center. If we kept Spezza then we would not have needed Yashin and would have Chara a future HOF on our team. Shoot Chara and Cairns was freaking crazy pairing back then.

But as a Met fan I still suffer for the day we traded Seaver, and Ryan while letting Cone, Strawberry and others go for nothing. As bad as it gets if we had kept those two players….

And has done more damage to the team than 100 Lemieuxs, Jagrs, Messiers, Carters and Brodeurs combined. Every snide comment, every dismissive story, every negative emotion directed at this franchise since 1995 can be directly traced back to his reign of terror. This absolutely includes their civic issues and their difficulties in getting a new arena.

The specifics are irrelevant. We can rehash Luongo, Yashin, et al until the apocalypse (aka tomorrow), but the end result is a hockey world that sees the Islanders only as a punchline. It’s not fair to the current management or players, but that’s how it is. They’ll need to dig themselves out from a pile of shit that one incompetent, impatient, big mouthed coach/GM/tryant started building over 15 years ago. A few years of high finishes and least one Cup MIGHT finally drive a stake into that monster’s heart forever. Maybe.

I actively avoid watching games on NBC because the very idea of that guy telling other (better) teams what to do and how to play is a sick joke.

His name is forbidden to be type around these quarters! lol

I would EVER be defending “He who shall not be named”. But I only voted “what was he thinking”. Remember his early years were marked with horrible ownership, that forced him to trade young talent in salary dumps(Palffy) etc. Also to dream of our young talented roster today sprinkled with guys he traded away is unrealistic. If we had retained talent, we never would have had such high draft positions to get Tavares etc. Plus RDP’s 15 yr contract was signed after he was gone.

who the contrary SoB who voted “loved him” is.

I think it was during his recent interview with Botta where Milbury said he was at the Winter Classic and he was getting heckled by an Islanders fan. He couldn’t understand why an Islanders fan would show up in an Islanders jersey at a non-Islanders game just to heckle him. Really, he’s that dense – and arrogant about what he visited on this franchise.

Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that Milbury was a “gutless puke” when he played. It was Milbury going after a rookie – Duane Sutter – after the horn sounded to end the 1st period in Game 2 of the 1980 SC quarterfinals against the Bruins that set off the record-breaking penalty-filled brawl.

Mad Mike may have traded away all that talent, but he also brought it all in to begin with. His fascination with DiP aside, his dealings mostly were to help the financial bottom line. This team has been cash-strapped since Pickett became majority owner nearly 30 years ago, and only Saint Torrey and Saint Arbour made it work so long. Garth did the same thing MM did for a decade a couple years ago in the ‘rebuild’, but we don’t vilify him because he has also brought in awesome talent on the cheap and has kept the core intact. We miss Roli and Bergie most keenly the deeper the Bolts go in the playoffs, but it cleared the way for Poulin and Grabner to arrive.
I voted ‘Terrible’, because the Maloney Era (Fishsticks, Bleeping Muller, Rangers Cup, Hiring MM) was comparatively way worse, though blessedly shorter.

You did not support Milbury’s youth movement or Luongo, Palffy, Bertuzzi and those other players and forced the owner to tell the general manager cut the budget to nothing. As soon as Milbury got permission from Wang’s ownership to spend he saved his job and improved his team by over forty points in one year.

No one complained in 2001-02, you showed up.

You did now show up after the cup years, for Torrey and Arbour and there were empty seats during the 92-93 playoffs. You are not showing up now to support Snow’s youth movement.

You can talk about all those trades but your choices as customers were a big reasons behind those decisions. The team could not continue with less than 5,000 at games, you gave Wang’s ownership no choice because you refused to be patient and support a youth movement.

Same one many of you will not support now with complaints when the owner dared raise prices to the league average.

Milbury did his job, he brought the NHL playoffs back to New York under Wang at a time you demanded Wang prove he was not Milstein. It was the only plan you showed any sign of supporting for a while until Wang raised prices to pay for Yashin, Peca.

Stop blaming Milbury, Wang or any owner, start blaming yourselves.
Sorry.

You stopped supporting the team long before Milbury arrived.

You can only kid yourself, fans were booing Bill Torrey before he was let go as general manager.

Our fans have been the joke of the NHL finishing dead last in attendance almost every year since 1989 and you should start blaming yourselves. Other local teams fans stay away when losing (Knicks, Yankees, Mets, Rangers, Nets) but none are as fair weather as New York Islander fans.

Charles Wang’s New York Islanders made four playoffs in five years, as owner before his roster took over the title of the NHL most injured team three of the last four years.

Many NHL teams have done far worse on the ice, none has done worse in the stands for 20 years, you can blame Milbury but you can’t hide from facts your support was terrible before and after Milbury.

Don’t blame Snow, Milbury, Maloney or Torrey, start looking in the mirror.

Milbury got people to come to games again with his short-sighted decisions.

In the 1980’s the convicted felon in the Bronx who got a taxpayer funded renovation in 1976 blamed his new decade old stadium and the neighborhood for attendance because he wanted even more money, completely different. No one else blamed Yankee Stadium.

Obviously someone missed all those sellouts in the second half of 2001-02 and the playoffs after Milbury made his moves.

Too cup spoiled-fairweather to show up from 89-93 until the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs against Pittsburgh and too fair weather to leave as soon as Wang raised ticket prices after 2002?

Good question, perhaps both combined with some spoiled sense of entitlement. Maybe the only template fans accept are the Yankees way, you either buy everyone and spend the most or I’m not interested. Msg has tons of phony announced sellouts, they cannot put out enough ads for tickets but not as bad as here.

I remember after the great second half in 2002, Wang raised the prices thirty eight percent to pay for those signings and people acted like he committed a crime by raising the prices to go in line with increased payroll.

Some fans seem to expect a 2012 payroll with 1980 ticket prices, that’s not realistic.

As for the Caps this is New York, the history/tradition are far different and that team moved.

Those people will not be going away like our fans did and that franchise moved, added Jagr and still tons of big names and could not draw flies. They were far more popular in Landover and even after going to the finals the team took over a decade for downtown to support them full time in a new location and that was after Ovechkin.

What rebuild have the Islanders had, they lead the NHL in man games three out of four years with absurd man games lost.

Bottom line fans have to show up and spend their money for every game or it’s not going to work here. The NHL is not going to support a team that finishes dead last or at bottom every year.

My posts are neither rambling, all over the place or treating anyone poorly. Stop blaming Milbury and giving yourselves excuses not to support this team, the problem was there before and after him.

Fans do bitch and complain about prices and withhold support everywhere, no one withholds their support more than New York Islander fans and have for the most part since 1989.

That has to change now.

It’s changing when 15,000 people show up on weeknights in October and November, and not giveaways, freebies or phony numbers like Msg and the Devils also pad but an adult crowd of die-hard fans making noise.

Attendance was higher (padded at the end because of a ticket decrease and a ton of freebies/discounts, maybe a few folks came out because of winning too but not enough.

Milbury was not here from 1989-1995 and has not made a front office decision since June 2006. The week Snow traded for Ryan Smyth he made his debut against the Blues 12,500 showed up, it’s time to stop blaming Milbury who got a scorer in Parrish who took them to a few playoffs along with Kvasha’s 51 point in 03-04 while DiPietro became an all-star and an olympian.

People did not come out to support Roberto Luongo, they are not coming out to support anyone.

Once again that has to change now.

The fans started leaving in 1989 under John Pickett who paid four Stanley Cup winners when Mike Milbury was going to Stanley Cup Finals with Boston.

As I wrote no NHL teams fans win or lose withhold their support more than this franchise, that’s not shaming the commenter s here but pointing out a few facts you may like to read but should be brought forward even if that’s tough to face up to.

It’s time to stop blaming Milbury for that or why the Washington-Pittsburgh games did not sellout during the 92-93 playoffs or what happened as soon as Wang raised ticket prices after 2002 to pay for some of his signings.

The reality is the fans decisions to withhold support have been a huge part of management’s choices for better and worse. That’s not uncommon anywhere, but here it’s far worse.

Mike Milbury is a footnote in that who got them to three out of four playoffs in his five years as gm under Charles Wang’s tenure. He was the only gm to pack the building for any length of time during the second half of 2002 and playoffs.

After four straight cups, 1987 great run and a first place finish in 1988, the fan base was gone in less than a year and stopped showing up in 1989. Fan support stopped long before Pickett saw the handwriting on the wall and that was with Torrey and Arbour.

Not too many fan bases run for the exits that quickly. This is a fan base that was booing Bill Torrey by 1992.

Two out of Milbury’s three playoff teams were seeded eighth but last year three teams finished with 88 points with one going to the Finals. The 2002 team finished a point out of first and was fifth overall with 96 points. 2002 went seven games, 2003 they lost a double ot game and 2004 every game was close.

To write any of the Islander playoff teams were demolished under Wang, Milbury and even Snow would not be a fair reflection of those close games.

The team that traded for Ryan Smyth was in sixth place that year, 12,000 showed up for the first game after that trade.

Nielsen, Comeau, Gervais, DiPietro, Hunter (trade from Anaheim) and Martinek are players still here from Milbury’s tenure. Dustin Kohn is a pick from Milbury’s tenure.

What rebuilding is done when you lead the NHL in man games lost three out of four years with 402, 582 and over 600 this year to go with AHL leading man games lost over 300?

Satan has a cup ring and went to semi’s and finals. Fedotenko also won a Stanley Cup and was one of Tampa’s best players. Mike Comrie went to a final with Ottawa.

All three signed here and the fans did not show up to support them.

Bottom line you have to look hard at fan support for 20+ years.