Recovering From Mike Milbury - Is Five Years Long Enough?
by Derek Zona on Jan 6, 2011 6:30 AM MST
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Five years ago next Wednesday, Charles Wang finally pulled the chute on Mike Milbury's career as a General Manager. For some bizarre reason, Wang chose to leave Milbury in the position of Interim General Manager until his replacement was named seven months later.
Milbury was a goon during his playing days, accumulating more than two minutes of penalties per game played, and was known as the goon who climbed into the stands to fight a fan with a shoe. After his career, he spent six years in Boston, coaching one of the most talented teams in the league to a President's Cup and nothing else. His hubris knew no bounds - he was the coach who selected, Chris Nilan and Brian Skrudland to the 1991 Wales Conference team at the 1991 All-Star Game. After his coaching career, he headed to management on Long Island.
Milbury stayed with the Islanders for eleven seasons. Milbury left a franchise in ruins. Think about this for a moment - prior to his arrival as head coach, the Islanders made the playoffs seventeen of twenty-three years since coming into the league in 1972. Milbury served as head coach during four seasons in which he was fired twice, and the Islanders did not make the playoffs. During his eleven seasons as General Manager, the Islanders made the playoffs three times, compared to the seventeen playoff appearances in twenty-three seasons prior to Milbury's arrival.
Selecting Chris Nilan and Brian Skrudland to the All-Star Game was not the worst or even second-worst move that Milbury made. After the jump, we'll look at his history as a General Manager.
All information taken from the wonderful NHL Trade History
1996
January 23rd, 1996
To Islanders: Martin Straka, Bryan Berard, Ken Belanger
To Toronto: Kirk Muller
To Ottawa: Wade Redden
Milbury waived Straka as soon as the Islanders made the post season.
To Islanders: Kenny Jonsson, Darby Hendrickson, Sean Haggerty and a 1st round pick in 1997 (Roberto Luongo).
To Toronto: Wendel Clark, Matthieu Schneider and D.J. Smith
June 1, 1996
To Dallas: Brad Lukowich
To Islanders: 3rd round pick in 1997
Sept 4, 1996
To Colorado: Brent Severyn
To Islanders: 3rd round pick in 1997
Nov 17, 1996
To Islanders: Bryan Smolisnki
To Pittsburgh: Darius Kasparaitus and Andreas Johansson
Nov 27, 1996
To Islanders: Paul Kruse
To Calgary: Colorado's 3rd round pick in 1997 (previously acquired)
1997
March 18, 1997
To Hartford: Derek King
To Islanders: 5th round pick in 1997 (Adam Edinger)
To Islanders: Robert Reichel
To Calgary: Marty McInnis, Tyrone Garner, and a 6th round pick in 1997 (Ilja Demidov)
1998
February 6, 1998
To Anaheim: Doug Houda, Travis Green and Tony Tuzzolino
To Islanders: Mark Janssens, JJ Daigneault and Joe Sacco
To Islanders: Trevor Linden
To Vancouver: Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan McCabe, and a 3rd round pick in 1998 (Jarko Ruutu)
March 23rd, 1998
To Islanders: Gino Odjick
To Canucks: Jason Strudwick
[Editor's note: we can also blame Milbury for bringing Jason Strudwick to the Western Conference and eventually the Edmonton Oilers where he's become one of the worst players in the NHL.]
May 30th 1998
To Islanders: Dimitri Nabokov
To Chicago: J.P. Dumont
1999
January 9th, 1999
To Toronto: to Bryan Berard and Isles' 6th round pick (Jan Sochor) in 1999 Draft.
To Islanders: Felix Potvin and 6th round pick in
March 9th, 1999
To Islanders: 3rd round pick in 1999
To Canadiens: Scott Lachance
March 20, 1999
To Islanders: Mats Lindgren and Oilers 8th round pick in 1999
To Edmonton Oilers: Tommy Salo
To Islanders: 4th Round pick
To Ottawa Senators: Ted Donato
To Islanders: Brad Isbister, and Coyotes' 3rd round pick in 1999 (Brian Collins).
To Coyotes: Robert Reichel, a 3rd round pick (Jason Jaspers), and Ottawa's 3rd round pick in 1999 (Preston Mizzi)
March 22, 1999
To Islanders: 4th round pick in 1999.
To Devils: Sergei Nemchinov
May 29th 1999
To Islanders: 1st round pick in 1999 (Branislav Mezei).
To Canadiens: Trevor Linden
June 20, 1999
To Islanders: Olli Jokinen, Josh Green, Mathieu Biron, and King's 4th round pick in 1999.
To Los Angeles Kings: Ziggy Palffy, Bryan Smolinski, and Marcel Cousineau
December 19, 1999
To Islanders: Bill Muckalt, Kevin Weekes and Dave Scatchard.
To Vancouver: Felix Potvin and 2nd and 3rd round (Thatcher Bell) picks in 2000
2000
June 24th, 2000
To Islanders: Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha
To Panthers: Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen
To Islanders: 2000 first round pick (#5-Raffi Torres), 2000 fourth round pick (#105-Vladimir Gorbunov), 2000 seventh round pick (#202-Ryan Caldwell)
To Tampa: Kevin Weekes, Kristian Kudroc, 2001 second round pick (#31-Matthew Spiller)
To Islanders: Roman Hamrlik
To Oilers: Eric Brewer, Josh Green, 2000 second round (#35-Brad Winchester)
2001
January 3rd, 2001
To Islanders: Jason Blake
To Los Angeles: conditional pick in 2002.
June 22nd, 2001
To Islanders: the rights to Adrian Aucoin and Alexander Kharitonov.
To Tampa: Mathieu Biron, 2nd round pick in the 2002
June 23rd, 2001
To Islanders: Alexei Yashin
To Ottawa: 1st round pick in 2001, Zdeno Chara, and Bill Muckalt.
June 24th, 2001
To Islanders: Mike Peca
To Buffalo: Tim Connolly and Taylor Pyatt.
2002
Nothing significant.
2003
March 11th, 2003
To Islanders: Justin Papineau and a 2nd round pick in 2003.
To St. Louis Blues: Chris Osgood and a 3rd round pick in 2003
March 11th, 2003
To Islanders: Janne Niinimaa and a 2nd round pick in 2003
To Oilers: Brad Isbister and Raffi Torres.
2004
March 9th, 2004
To Islanders: Alexander Karpovstev
To Chicago Blackhawks: 4th round pick in 2004.
2005
August 3: To Edmonton Oilers: Michael Peca
To New York Islanders: Mike York and a conditional draft pick in 2006
August 3: To New York Islanders: Brent Sopel
To Vancouver Canucks: 3rd round pick in 2006
2006
January 10, 2006
To New York Islanders : John Erskine and a 2nd round pick in 06
To Dallas Stars: Janne Niinimaa and a 5th round pick in 2007 (Ondrej Roman)
March 8, 2006 :
To Los Angeles Kings : Mark Parrish and Brent Sopel
To New York Islanders: Denis Grebeshkov , Jeff Tambellini and a conditional 3rd round pick
March 9, 2006
To New Jersey Devils : Brad Lukowich
To New York Islanders : 3rd round pick in 2006
March 9, 2006
: To Phoenix Coyotes: Oleg Kvasha and a conditional 5th round pick in 2006
To New York Islanders : 3rd round pick in 2007 and a conditional 3rd round pick in 2007
It seems like Milbury runs out of steam in his later career, but by that time, he'd traded every valuable piece in the Islanders organization. I'd like to try and summarize this, but I can't. Milbury dumped every piece of talent he had for nothing.
After all of this, this mess, Milbury was fired by Charles Wang. He was "promoted' to Vice President of Wang Properties, a promotion to keep him away from further screwing the Islanders, something he'd perfected in his long tenure. After quitting the VP job in 2007, he was immediately hired by TSN, NBC and NESN as a studio analyst to lend expert analysis to their panel. Expert analysis? From a goon, turned terrible coach turned General Manager that torched a franchise?
The Islanders are still recovering from the Milbury years, yet the man that wrecked the team and franchise is paid to go on television each night and tell fans what other teams are doing wrong. At this point, it's like being advised about your health by Dr. Kevorkian.
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On the whole, he’s made more good deals than bad, but boy do his bad ones really suck.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
He didn’t know when to stop. He turned Connolly and Pyatt into Mike Peca…and then into Mike York.
He turned Palffy into Jokinen…and then Jokinen and Luongo into Kvasha and Parrish.
Someone should have gone into his office. “Put down the phone, Mike. Step away from the phone.”
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
It’s like turning Pitkanen into Vandermeer.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
The one where he let luongo go and then drafting Dipietro when he could have had Heatley? and then Spezza in the next draft for troublemaker Yashin!
Islanders could have been the better version of Senators with Chara, Redden, Spezza HEatley and Luongo….oh man! its funny to think about it.
Also it would be interesing to read what people felt about those trades at that time…Hindsight is a tool we often dont have in the present
Spezza and Chara!
Hindsight does play a huge factor and Yashin was a very good offensive player but I didn’t like the trade at the time.
I also don’t know what the mandate was from ownership but I thought Spezza was a pretty good draft choice at the time.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
.oh man! its funny to think about it.
Easy for you to say!
/he said, having thoroughly enjoyed C&B’s takes on Tambellini the Elder.
As far as what was said at the time, no doubt that would be interesting. Personally, I couldn’t have survived if I was writing about it every day. As BC pointed out below, a few were ownership-ordained (and I use "own"ership loosely). But his self-fleecing is inexcusable.
Lighthouse Hockey: And you shall know us by the fraying of our hips.
a scene with Greek tragical overtones
Earlier this year—in the midst of the Streak—Isles are in Beantown. DP sees a B forward breaking in alone. He goes out to play the puck like the third defenseman somebody drafted him to be…but the forward gets the puck back and makes him look very silly scoring.
Doesn’t somebody jump over DP every which way but loose…saying that the Isles need him to be better than that and that he (DP) tries to do too much and….
Katz = Wang. Wacky rich guys who don’t know hockey.
Tambelinni = Milbury (but with a timid trigger finger)
.
Wacky rich guys who don’t know hockey.
Doesn’t that describe every NHL owner?
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
Not all of them. I don’t think this is the case for the Molson brothers, the Habs’ owners — they watch and they care. Thankfully, they care and know enough to let their hockey men do their jobs…
Does watching and caring mean you know hockey?…. if that was the case, Katz wouldn’t qualify as well?
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
Not necessarily but I do think the Molsons are unwacky know enough — at least enough to leave well enough alone. Here’s hoping Geoff keeps the same hands-off approach once he is president.
Or maybe I’m just deluding myself. :P
Yeah, I think it’s still a pretty untested theory at this point. There isn’t much of a tradition of meddling owners in Montreal, though. Penny-pinchers, yes.
Puck Worlds: Chasing Pucks from here to Turku.
For Twitter Updates on Puck Worlds, follow @puckworlds. For updates plus additional witty banter from yours truly, follow @saskhab.
I’d add Ed Snider to that list, unfortunately his hockey knowledge hasn’t updated from the 70s
Simon Gagne may move between towns, wear new jerseys and call different arenas home, but at the end of the day, he will always be a Philadelphia Flyer.
by PursuitOfLappyness on Jan 7, 2011 7:20 PM MST up reply actions
Frankly, I’d rather be advised on my health by Kevorkian than hockey by Milbury. A lot of these trades reflect the baseless filth he spews on-air; young players are just young players, “experienced” (marked by years in the league and nothing else) and “hard-working” (a mother-of-all arbitrary designations) players are more valuable.
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
Co-Manager at Behind the Net
by Bettman's Nightmare on Jan 6, 2011 11:43 AM MST reply actions
Hello Oil fans
In fairness to Mad Mike, several things should be noted. First, during the early part of his tenure, he was under orders from owners who were quite literally criminals to sell off all of the expensive players like Palffy. That was their way of trying to make the franchise pay rather than making a serious effort to spend money and produce a better product on the ice. Gary B. actually forced the Kings to include Jokinnen in the Palffy trade. For all his faults, Wang has always wanted to change that culture.
I should add that not all of the trades were bad. For example, most Isle fans regard Kenny Jonsson as the best franchise defenseman after The Captain and that’s saying a lot. And, of course, the Luongo pick (#4 overall) was also great value in return.
Luongo’s Islander tenure is a perfect illustration of how NOT to manage a franchise. Milbury had already gone through F. Potvin and T. Salo in net. He then drafted Luongo #4, the earliest anyone had drafted a goalie until he traded him and Jokinnen away three years later, passed on Heatley, and drafted DP. Then because he’d passed on Heatley, he needed a franchise center. So he traded away Chara and the Spezza pick for Yashin who is still the highest paid forward on our payroll. Later he passed on Zack Parise for a certain forward you know all too well whose name I will not bore you with.
So with a little patience, he could have had a top line of Heatley, Spezza, and Parise, a defense with Chara and maybe McCabe, and Luongo in net. And there might well be a few more banners in the Coliseum rafters.
For all the criticism Garth gets, he is doing things the right way. He is building slowly through the draft and has put together an impressive array fo prospects that is getting better every year as well as FAs like Streit and Moulson and waiver wire pickups like RSH and Grabner. In a year or two, this team will be very special.
Check out LHH. I have a post up looking at the WJC aftermath and draft prospects. And feel free to comment.
by BCISLEMAN on Jan 6, 2011 11:45 AM MST reply actions 1 recs
Like I said above, he’s got some really good deals in his history, probably more good than bad ones in terms of shear numbers.
But man, his bad ones really hurt a lot and greatly over shadow his good ones. If makes a good trade (like Acquiring Luongo) he follows it up with a deal that renders that first one moot (trading luongo for Kvasha/Parrish).
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
again, as I say, the early deals weren't necessarily his...as for the others...
the early Wang years he got some good players by draft or trade… but he would not show the patience to develop them properly. In his book, The Road to Hockeytown, Jimmy Devellano gives you a primer on being a good GM.
First, you need the owner’s full support and loyalty. Then you need a good scouting system. And then you need a real vision of what kind of team you are going to build—primarily through the draft—and the patience to make that vision a reality.
Mad Mike is like Burkie in that neither has that kind of patience. Burkie at least has a vision of the kind of team he wants. Not sure that Mad Mike ever had that. He had the accepted idea of the time of building from the net outward…but he could never settle on a goalie. He went from Salo to Potvin to drafting Luongo to drafting DP. I sometimes think Wang did The Contract to stop the merry-go-round as much as anything else.
It seems like after the Yashin deal, whatever ability he and those with him may have had to select talent went out the window. It isn’t just Parise. From 2001 to 2005, the organization became a virtual black hole. DP, Hunts, and Frans Nielsen are really the only players left from that era.
Apart from those players, Garth really only had the 2005 and 2006 drafts to build on. He has pretty much started from scratch, which makes the turn around all the more remarkable.
by BCISLEMAN on Jan 6, 2011 3:37 PM MST up reply actions 1 recs
In fairness to Mad Mike, several things should be noted. First, during the early part of his tenure, he was under orders from owners who were quite literally criminals to sell off all of the expensive players like Palffy.
I read this often, but I don’t see it in practice. Aside from Palffy, who else? He was forced to trade Linden and Muller over a contract dispute – big deal, every GM has his hand forced like that, he’s not special.
He traded Muller AND Redden in the same deal and got Berard and Straka in return. Then he waived Straka who went on to tally 575+ points. Like I said above he would land a decent return and then turn that in worse.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
Millbury had keep salary LOW- so he traded players who would soon enough be making good money. You cant just look at the players who were already making good money.
Let Us Go, Islanders! (Ever notice how strange that sounds without the contraction?)
by TheMetalChick on Jan 6, 2011 6:32 PM MST up reply actions
and Palffy was the leading scorer, Linden the top center, and Pilon the best stay at home defenseman…the heart and soul of the team. This really isn’t controversial…well known fact actually. In fact, I recall being relieved when Wang took over that there finally was an owner who was willing to spend money to improve the team.
it’s like being advised about your health by Dr. Kevorkian.
Ok, I have to give you credit here for this one, that was funny.
Reading through his moves it’s a tutorial on how to ruin a franchise. Seems like Milbury is a classic example of failing upward in a career. He sucked as a player, was terrible as a GM and manages to be worse with his commentary.
"In fact, it is probably safe to say, the statement "I am a hockey fan" is the same as "I hate gary bettman."- bfrank27
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