In the last installment of the Lost Milbury Files we went over the case of J.P. Dumont which started when the Islanders were unable to sign him to a deal. That is going to be a continuing trend for the first few of these.

Inexplicably the Islanders organization would have the money to bring in veterans, yet somehow were unable (or unwilling) to give money to youngsters. Even when the team did sign younger players, Milbury tended to trade them before their contract. The few who managed to stick around and see arbitration against Milbury did not have it end well.

Anyway, the Berard story actually starts with the 1995 draft, in which Don Maloney took Wade Redden second overall. Ottawa took Bryan Berard with the first overall pick. Within seven months, one of the odder trades in NHL memory took place. In the end the Islanders swapped Berard for Redden, while also gaining Martin Straka and getting rid of Kirk Muller. After 22 games it was determined Straka was too expensive, he was exposed to waivers and claimed by Florida.

Bryan Berard though was a stud and then some. In his rookie campaign he finished with 48 points, two points behind rookie scoring leader Jarome Iginla. At the end of the season Berard won the Calder, along with being named to the NHL All Rookie team. The future was looking bright for both the team and Berard. But while he had a repeat point performance (46) in his sophomore campaign, his minus-32 was not just worst on the team (by 13) but fifth worst in the league. He was still young and plenty of players have bounced back from tough sophomore seasons.

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Mike Milbury deserves to go down in the record books as one of the worst general managers of a sports team since Harry Frazee ran the Boston Red Sox. Milbury is one of the only GMs in NHL history whose name is next to two of the worst trades on many pundits' Top 10 lists: Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen for Mark Parish and Oleg Kvasha is right up there with Alexei Yashin for Zdeno Chara, Bill Muckalt and a first round pick (Jason Spezza, 2nd overall in 2001).

But beyond the LOL moves, there was so much more to Milbury's failings. Even teams that have made ridiculously bad trades were eventually able to make up for it. For all the flack that the Eric Lindros to Flyers trade gets in handing the future Colorado Avalanche several pieces of a Stanley Cup, at least the Flyers were a dominant team with Lindros and made the Stanley Cup finals. But it was a lot of the small trades and moves that sunk the Milbury Islanders. The franchise struggled not because of one huge deal, but because of a thousand small moves that nibbled the team to death. Today we look at the strange case of J.P. Dumont as an Islander.

1996 Entry Draft

The dawn of a new era for the Islanders, as Milbury was picking the first piece of the future. No more half hearted rebuilds, they were going to do things the Devils way. Although there were no franchise players, defenseman Chris Phillips was considered the best player in the draft followed by Andrei Zyuzin, Dumont and Alexandre Volchkov. In the midst of the '90s rush for quality D-men, Phillips and Zyuzin and were take at #1 and #2 by Ottawa and San Jose.

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Saturday's game and Ken Morrow's induction into the New York Islanders Hall of Fame, is an afternoon game, so we'll get this one up a little early.

The people who played with and coached Morrow (and hopefully more of you who watched him with grown-up eyes) can say it best (videos below, but great stuff from his college coach Ron Mason here). As a silly kid, I just remember Morrow as a tall, bearded blueliner who kept things simple (or so it appeared) and enabled Denis Potvin, the top-scoring defenseman of all time, to do his thing.

What I didn't know as a clueless young tyke was just how much Morrow was respected, and just how much he played through injury (reportedly having knee surgery in mid-postseason at least once). From that New York Times piece in 1983:

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This is how time and memory and diversion stumble together through life in uncoordinated yet serendipitous collaboration: Last week in a power rankings post on this site -- a site that is part-info aggregator, part fellowship of hockey fans -- the comments turned to speedy former Islander Claude LaPointe, which turned to Marty McInnis, which turned to McInnis's "Kid Line" mate Brad Dalgarno. (Travis Future "Gutless Puke" Green was the third Kid.)

Dalgarno was a bigger player but was thought not to use his size with the appropriate ferocity '80s hockey demanded. Why was that? Some remembered injuries, and some remembered an infamous fight with Joey Kocur and a particularly devastating injury that ended his career ... until he started anew. I remembered Dalgarno talking about that in a podcast a few years ago, which I'll get to in a moment.

The third leg of this happenstance triangle, and why in 2011 I bring up a 1985 Islanders draft pick who last played in 1996, is an article just posted at Grantland, which itself is about an article from 1990 ... which was not about Dalgarno at all but about Kocur and the curious existence of NHL enforcers.

Putting these three legs together is a fun look back across the decades into themes that are ingrained in hockey of any era: The insane yet somehow relevant existence of fighting, the primal ambiguous trait of "toughness," the entertainment (including both of those traits) that draws us to this game, and the perseverance through injuries that, frankly, would cause most of us to call in sick for work.

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In this installment we check in with the master of FIGs and power tablature, ICanSeeForIslesAndIsles, who has graciously written up his story. For the second week in a row it's another reformed Short Island Smurf fan. Considering that there was a 10-year difference between the birth of the Mets and the Islanders, I wonder if young NYC baseball fans of the '60s and '70s have the same experiences.

Well if one thing's for sure, the Islanders are definitely hockey Pepsi in NYC compared to the Rangers tried and true Classic Coca-Cola. Of course there was that brief flirtation with New Coke in the mid 90s (also known as rebranded Edmonton RC Cola) but now they are sticking with what works. In keeping with that theme, the Islanders have re-branded themselves for the ten millionth time, much like Pepsi changes the logo every other year.

ICanSeeForIslesAndIsles' story is after the jump. As always feel free to leave your own story, or just reminisce about different times and eras. I started this with the thought that sometimes we forget why we love our team, especially when the loses pile up and the guys are doing snow angels on the ice. So let's take a post to mellow out and enjoy the good vibes.

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Where did it all begin? It's a simple question with a multitude of answers for Islander fans. During the team's 40th Anniversary, it's time to do some exploration into that simple premise. So beginning on U.S. Thanksgiving, we're going to start looking into how some of the writers at LHH became Islander fans themselves. Then we'll continue the trip down memory lane, looking back at first games, favorite moments, and so on.

It is amazing when you think of the team being 40 years old this year. It means that some people who were in their 20s when the team came to town are now watching the games with their grandkids. Being 40 means that there are probably a countless amount of ways that a person has become a fan. Being 40 also makes the Islanders the youngest team of the 4 major sports in NYC, and yet it seems like they have one of the richest histories.

Today we start with David Hanssen's story. For those of you who don't know Dave, he was brought on board at the same time as me. Since then he has moved to Minnesota and is on his way to become a protestant preacher. His way with words and insightful comments are definitely missed around here.

After the jump, Dave's story. In this or any that follow, by all means share yours.

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Back in August I put out a call for people who wanted to take part in a tournament. Hoping to get 10 people involved, and with each person drafting 10 players from the Islanders history, it required a ranking of 110 Isles. In the end four people volunteered and sent me in lists, Fire Garth Snow, ChrisMC, Pretty Good Idiot and MDelbags. Since they had sent in more then enough players, I decided to have them draft whole teams. Other then the top 4 of every list, there was very little that was the same between them.

Each team ended up with 19 players, 12 forwards, 6 defenseman and 1 goalie. I told them not to worry about Wings and Centers in order to make things easier. I also allowed them to add some character by naming the team and picking the lines, those that didn't I just setup lines based on when people were drafted. After the jump is the results of the draft and each team roster. This is going to be the first of two parts. I need you the reader to vote in the comments on which teams you think would win. The two winning teams and two losing teams will face off in the next part for 1st and 3rd place respectively.

I just wanted to say thank you to those that joined, as it was definitely tough to rank 110 Islander players. If people like how this worked out, we might try something similar in the future.

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[Updated with statement from Islanders GM Garth Snow, reactions from Evgeni Nabokov]

News is filtering in from Russia about an awful tragedy that may have killed most of if not the entire roster for KHL team Lokomotiv, in a plane crash shortly after takeoff near Yaroslavl. Russia Today reports:

"HK Lokomotiv confirmed that its entire 37-strong main squad was on board the Yak-42. They were traveling to the Belarusian capital Minsk."

Puck Daddy has more, and you might look for updates at Dmitry Chesnokov's Twitter.

I have no words. I don't want to gawk at tragedies. But some beloved former NHLers were on that roster -- ex-Islander Josef Vasicek; Slovakian Pavol Demitra are listed -- so expect to be affected by the news as confirmed names come out. To re-iterate, I have seen no individual fatalities identified as of this posting, but they'll be trickling in.

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