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By Mark D, January 29, 2012 5:43 am

I must admit, until last night I was a fan of Neil Smith. While he did help the Rangers get to the Cup in 94, anyone that can so demolish the Rangers that they almost miss the playoffs for a complete decade is alright in my book. But it’s rather amusing how Neil Smith and Mike Milbury are both pretty bad GMs but in different ways. While Milbury would have good drafts and trade away youngsters for pennies on the dollar, Smith would have awful drafts and trade the few gems he did have for big name players past their prime. Actually the main difference is that Smith won a Cup, otherwise they were pretty much both morons.

Whenever your bring up 94 and say Smith just bought the Oilers Dynasty over (which is pretty much exactly what he did) people always complain about “oh yea, what about Richter and Leetch?” Of course what they don’t mention is that both players were already in the Rangers Organization when Smith took over. Trading for Messier is a no brainer. But wow, some of the other trades. Look, I don’t care how highly you hold the “Matteau Goal” he wasn’t worth Tony Amonte. Esa Tikkanen wasn’t worth Doug Weight. We won’t even get into the Zubov trade. The late 90s Rangers might have been a better team then the 94 team.

How bad did Neil Smith draft? Let’s take a look at his First Round picks as GM of the Rangers:

1989 20th Overall Steven Rice RW
Games Played 329
Rangers Games Played 11
Points 125
Steven Rice is more well known as an answer to a trivia question, name a player Mark Messier was traded for, then as a hockey player.

1990 13th Overall Michael Stewart D
Never Made the NHL
He was eventually traded along with Glenn Featherstone and a 1st round pick (that became Jean-Sebastien Giguere) for Pat Verbeek who played 110 games for the Rangers over 2 seasons.

1991 15th Overall Alexei Kovalev R
Games Played 1302
Rangers Games Played 492
Points 1024
Kovalev is probably the best of Neil Smith’s first round picks, but the kid could never get it done in New York, despite playing for the Rangers in 2 different stints. He was eventually traded for Nedved who was a solid Dman for 4 years.

1992 24th Overall Peter Ferraro R
Games Played 92
Rangers Games Played 8
Points 24
Smith drafted both Ferraro brothers in 92 and neither of them were any good on the NHL level. Peter Ferraro wasn’t even traded for anything.

1993 8th Overall Niklas Sundstrom D
Games Played 750
Rangers Games Played 315
Points 349
Sundstrom was traded with another Rangers 1st rounder, Dan Cloutier AND a 3rd rounder for the Lightnings 1st overall in 1999 (Pavel Brendl). The Lightning then turned around and traded Sundstrom for Shawn Burr, Steve Guolla, Bill Houlder and Andrei Zyuzin a month later. We’ll get to Brendl and Cloutier later…

1994 26th Overall Dan Cloutier G
Games Played 351
Rangers Games played 34
Cloutier is probably known for 2 phases in his career. Phase 1 in which he was a backup goalie who got in a lot of fights. Phase 2 in which he was an NHL Starter known for letting in easy goals. Seriously look at google image results for him:

1995 No First Round Pick
But in the 2nd round at 39th overall the Rangers did pick Christian Dube, who played 33 NHL games and had 2 points.

1996 22nd Overall Jeff Brown D
Played No NHL Games
During his career he wasn’t even good enough to play for the Rangers AHL affiliate, managing 18 games across 3 seasons following his draft. He only played another 54 total games in the AHL, all coming in one season for the San Antonio Rampage.

1997 19th Overall Stefan Cheneski
Played No NHL Games
Cherneski unfortunately suffered an injury that forced him to retire in 2001

1998 7th Overall Manny Malhotra C
826 NHL Games Played
274 Points
206 Ranger Games
Malhotra never lived up to his high level of hype with the Rangers, bouncing between NHL and AHL. His career was just about over when the Stars waived him. He was claimed by the always desperate Columbus Blue Jackets and had a breakthrough season.  He’s since stuck it out in the NHL as one of the top bottom 6 players in the league. Not exactly what you expect from a 6th overall.

1999 4th Overall Pavel Brendl W
78 Games Played
22 Points
No Games with Rangers
Was traded early in his Ranger career as part of the package that got the Rangers Eric Lindros. Bounced around the AHL for a while before returning to Europe.

1999 9th Overall Jamie Lundmark C
295 Games Played
99 Points
114 Games with the Rangers
Played a few half seasons with the Rangers before being traded to the Coyotes for Jeff Taffe. Taffe was then traded back to the Coyotes for Martin Sonnenberg an undrafted FA who left for Europe after finishing the season in the AHL.

In 2000 the Rangers had no first round pick, but the 2nd round pick 64th overall Filip Novak played 17 games in the NHL and was part of the trade for Pavel Bure.

So with 11 first round picks in 11 years, here’s how his picks did Neil Smith do?
4023 total games played
1180 Ranger games played
365.72 Average career games
107.27 Average games with Rangers

Just for references sake, the average NHL career is considered roughly 400 games. Nearly half of all the games with the Rangers comes from Kovalev’s 495. The career total is almost totally from 3 players: Kovalev (1302) Malhotra (826) and Sundstrom (750) who total an incredible 2878 combined NHL games of the 4023 total. If you take away those 3, it leaves 1145 of game to spread between the remaining 8 draftees. That would average out to 143 games.

By the time that Neil Smith was fired, the husk of a team he left behind rivaled the Milbury Islanders. The few gems like Doug Weight, Todd Marchant, Mattias Norstrom among others were traded for players who had short term stints with the Rangers. Marchant was traded for Craig MacTavish, who played a handful of games with the Rangers. Winning the Cup in 94 might have been one of the shortest of the short term visions.

One day we’ll have to match up the could have been Rangers team with the could have been Islanders team and see who comes out on top. But for the most part it seems like if Neil Smith didn’t stumble upon a team with a ton of money at the same time a great team was struggling to pay the bills, he probably never would have won a cup. Which would have made this intro for his website relatively boring. It also would have made the 94 at the end of his twitter name a lot more pointless.

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By Mark D, January 3, 2012 9:20 pm

(Wrote this up for LHH, but then decided to switch it over here as everyone at LHH had a “get out the anger on Snow” day)

With the Islanders on nearly the same points pace as last year, just without the one win November, fans are left trying to figure out what has gone wrong. A promising end to last season had some of us hoping for more, at the very least the team being within striking distance of a playoff appearance. Instead the Islanders are closer to the first overall pick. While that isn’t particularly bad for the future, that three years into John Tavares’ already phenomenal career the team is back where it started is worrying.

It’s currently not out of the realm of possibility that the Islanders will have less then 25 wins this season. If they do it will be the first time since the 00-01 team finished with just 21 wins. Disregarding the lockout shortened 95 season, the Islanders have finished below 25 wins a total of 6 times, with 4 of those seasons being in the early half of the Milbury regime. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that this Islanders team shares a similar problem of those teams.

Parade Of The Retreads

With the infusion of Charles Wang’s cash, Milbury was quick to predict the 00-01 team would make the playoffs or it would be his head. Bringing in a well past his prime John Vanbreisbrouck who had struggled with a good Flyers team in front of him along with former Bruin Garry Galley did little to cover the multitude of problems with the team. Garry Galley was just one of several former Bruins Milbury had coached and brought in well past their prime for one last try at re-capturing the magic of his cup run.

While we all applaud Snow for his willingness to rebuild the team and actually see the rebuild through, the reliance on older players who can no longer get it done until the absolute last moment is worrying. Two seasons ago it was giving Brendan Witt half a season before finally packing it in. This year it’s the play of Mike Mottau, Mark Eaton, Marty Reasoner and Brian Rolston.

While the Islanders might not have a choice due to the salary floor when it comes to Rolston, and Eaton can be a passable 6/7 defenseman, Mottau and Reasoner are sticking out like sore thumbs. What’s even worse about the decision making when involved when it comes to Eaton, Mottau and Reasoner is that all 3 were given two year contracts. So despite their struggles, they were kept around while better alternatives were let go.

Right now I don’t think anyone in the NHL would take Eaton or Mottau over Jack Hillen. Despite his common position as conductor of the scrapewagon, I’m sure most Islander fans would even prefer Bruno Gervais back over Mottau or Eaton. Obviously there are a limited amount of contracts that you can have, and the Islanders had to clear space for the incoming young dmen in BP.

Which also comes to Reasoner. No, I’m not about to argue that the Islanders should have kept Zenon Konpoka over Reasoner. But that the team seemed to be unaware of how close David Ullstrom was to being an NHL player is worrying. Much like the situation with Gervais and Hillen, the team decided to go with what should have been known quantities and the safe route in Eaton and Mottau. Reasoner was the safe route going into the season, but now that he’s being outplayed by Ullstrom, the Islanders are stuck with a 2 year deal on another older player.

One of the problems the organization has had for as long as I’ve been a fan is deciding when a player is ready for the big show. During the Milbury regime the problem was that guys were thrown into the fire far too quickly, and then blamed when they struggled. Now Snow seems to be taking it to the other extreme. Instead of replacing older guys who are struggling to keep up with the game, they are given every chance to keep their job. Meanwhile this seems to be at the expense of the youth, who are only given a chance as a last resort.

Two years ago Andrew MacDonald played great in a 2 game stint as an emergency callup for Brendan Witt who was hurt. Eventually MacDonald got the callup long term to replace the struggling Witt. But had Witt not been hurt, you have to wonder if MacDonald would still be an Islander today. He was in his final season of his ELC, and might have easily been ignored by the team.

This year you have to wonder what it would take for Ty Wishart to get a look before he becomes a free agent at the end of the year. Or what more the team might expect out of Dylan Reese as a callup? He did everything that could be expected out of him and was a breath of fresh air compared to Eaton and Mottau. Even if Wishart is struggling in the AHL, the Islanders have already have experience with a player who was struggling in the AHL but turned it around in the NHL (Montoya).

Right now the team is already one of the worst in the league. It’s almost not possible for them to become any worse then they currently are. It shouldn’t be surprising that last year the team turned the corner when James Wisniewski, Eaton, Mottau and Jon Sim were all dumped in favor of youth. There is no reason then that this team should be doing worse then last year with the additions of Al Montoya and Evgeni Nabokov along with the return of Mark Streit and Kyle Okposo. Since we aren’t going to blame Cappy yet, the buck has to stop at Snow.

It’s a tough position Snow came into as GM of the team, and if you don’t believe that Wang has opened the purse strings, then it’s even tougher. It’s not his fault free agents don’t want to come to the team. Who knows what might have been if Christian Erhroff had decided to sign here. But at the same time the moves he’s made this off-season have the team somehow standing still.

As this season floats closer to being lost, there is no danger in giving some of the kids a try in the NHL. No matter how much time any of them spend in the AHL, they are going to make mistakes at the NHL level. You might as well have them up here making mistakes now, then when it really matters.

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By Mark D, January 23, 2011 9:53 pm

I hope the dying shithole that is Pittsburgh ends up in worse shape then Flint Michigan.

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By Mark D, January 22, 2011 10:54 am

The Miracle Mets in 86 was back when I was all of 5 years old. Looking back and seeing how close that team came to losing (Thanks Billy Buckner), I should have been ready for what the future held. Since then as a fan of the Mets, Jets, Knicks and Islanders pretty much all I’ve known has been losing. The Mets have gotten to the World Series once since then, the Jets rarely ever get to the AFC championship game let alone the Super Bowl, the Knicks had a strong run but have been a laughing stock and the Isles, well if the Knicks are a laughing stock I’m not sure whats the next word down.

Look, it’s been a long hard time being a fan of all those teams, and tomorrow already feels like the Super Bowl. Let’s put aside the fact that I’ve hated the Steelers since they cheated to get to the Super Bowl with Neil O’Donnel (Kordell Stewart left the endzone and came back in before catching the game winning touchdown. They also have the most obnoxious bandwagon fans around, an asshole of a quarterback, the refs handed them their last Super Bowl win and they can shove all six of their Super Bowl rings up their collective asshole. Right now the Jets haven’t gotten to the Super Bowl in way too long. This is the first time they’ve gotten to the AFC Championship game twice in a decade. They need to have the Ghost of Leon Hess come up and say “I’m too old to wait, I want to win now!” to give them a kick in the ass.

Look, I really don’t care how they do it, but the Jets have to win tomorrow. There are no fans less deserving of a Super Bowl (another) appearance then the Steeler fans. Sure, Mike Vick is a villain but Ben Roethlisberger is able to get away with a certain crime that Rhymes with gRape and be cheered. Did  anyone protest his first game back? No, because people care more about Dogs then they do real Human beings. It’s been almost 25 years now since a team I like has won the Championship. I have since been taunted by everyone other NYC team winning and some Jersey teams too. I had to sit through the one Mets World Series appearance being spoiled by the Yankees. That the Giants have been to the Super Bowl multiple times and have won multiple Super Bowls. The Oilers pretending to be the Rangers even managed their once in 54  year miracle.

Look, I’m not sure what the Steelers did to deserve their six Super Bowl wins, the Refs constantly making favorable calls for them, or the reason that Philly stations broadcast the Steelers instead of the Jets. But as bad as all that is, if I have to sit through another Super Bowl with the Steelers in it, after they have beaten the Jets, I am going to lose my mind. I am going to start throwing stuff out my windows. The Steelers are the biggest pieces of crap, and they walk around as though their shit doesn’t stink. Their fans? even worse. If your a Steeler fan I probably hate you. For the most part your just like my ex, you don’t care about football until someone tells you the Steelers are in the Super Bowl. Then you run out and buy your brand new overpriced Bettis jersey cause you don’t realize that no talent is retiring at the end of the season.

Right now I am so angry at the thought of the Steelers winning tomorrow that I am nearly breaking my keys. All season long I’ve been telling my cousin to calm down because he gets overhyped for games. This is the reason why. You save up that anger and emotion for an important game. I knew the Jets were going to beat the Colts, I knew the Jets were going to beat the Pats. That wasn’t an issue and I wasn’t over excited. But now the Jets have to go out and win the big one to get to the game. This is why Ladamian Tomilison, Jason Taylor and Santonio Holmes was brought in. To win the big one and get the Jets over the hump.

Of course they also want their Super Bowl Rings which two of them are missing and Holmes probably has revenge on his mind. He had to pay the price for Big Ben’s infractions. No matter your regular season stats, do you really want to retire from the NFL without a ring and leave your legacy up in the air? People excuse Marion and Sanders, but you have to be insanely talented and stuck on an awful team to be remembered on that level. It is time for those guys to win the Super Bowl now, and to bring one home for the Jets fans.

We’ve been through a lot as Jets fans. Ken O’Brien, Browning Nagle, Rich Kotite, Neil O’Donnel, Bubby Brister, Rich Kotite, Rick Mirer, Al Groh, Rich Kotite and Eric Mangini. That’s just from the time period I’ve been watching them. Don’t forget there seems to be a lot of crossover between Jets/Mets/Islanders fans. We’ve all been suffering for nearly 30 years now. We deserve a winner. It feels like it’s now or never, like we’ll have to wait another 30 years for there to be another winner. That and did I mention I really hate the Steelers and their fans? No? Well I really do hate the Steelers and their fans.

So Let’s go J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS! and hopefully we’ll see Fireman Ed at the Super Bowl!

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By Mark D, November 18, 2010 12:53 pm

I’m actually writing one of my few posts over here on the Islanders because I don’t want to start a flame war anywhere else and I feel like this is marginal news at best. But on some sites you’d think it was the end of the world and part of a huge conspiracy to silence any critics of the Isles. Look, if Scientology which has a whole special organization to chase down it’s critics can’t silence them, I’m pretty sure the Islanders can’t silence critics.

The Islanders pulled Chris Botta’s press creds. Chris Botta is also the man behind Islanderspointblank.com. He had the press creds not for point blank, but for AOL Fanhouse and SNY. The Islanders reasoning behind this from a spokesman who talked to Newsday:

The reasons behind the action are not entirely clear. Team spokesman Kimber Auerbach said, “We funded his blog for the first year. When that changed he went from reporting the news to making the news.”

Auerbach added, “We have not stopped his blog. There are lots of bloggers out there who write from their homes, their couch, outside the arena. He just won’t have access.”

Anyone anywhere can start a blog writing about the Islanders. There are plenty of good Islanders bloggers who don’t have press creds that are able to get along just fine. This reeks more of “I’m going to take my ball and go home” of a six year old. He also knew exactly how some of the more crazy elements of the Islanders fanbase would react. In their minds, behind the scenes Wang and Snow somehow had Islanders Point Blank stopped and it’s part of the grand conspiracy which saw Jaffe get fired for being “too critical” A reason which makes almost no sense, and with the Islanders releasing no reason on why. Newsday claimed that MSG (who broadcasts Islanders games) had a multi-year contract but the Isles have final say and blocked it. The Islanders of course never released any official announcement, and the only source of this rumor is from Newsday (which is owned by the Dolans, who own MSG, the Knicks and Rangers).

Look, if in the long run it comes out that the Islanders had a hand in shutting down IPB and got rid of Jaffe because he was critical, shame on them on a multitude of levels. I just tend not to believe Rumors and Sources when no one is willing to put a name on it. Also the always interesting position of Newsday in all of this, which is owned by the Dolans who own MSG and the Knicks and the Rangers is a bit worrisome. Considering that MSG does almost nothing to advertise the Islander games and seems to find every reason to black them out, why should any Islander fan trust anything coming from Newsday?

The whole situation is a mess. Botta doesn’t exactly help himself when a number of people have seen him steer the comments on the blog via moderation. He might claim to not have control over what people say in his comments, but I’ve talked to plenty of people who are intelligent Islanders fans who see their comment eternally in moderation while the crazier commentators are allowed to run wild. Don’t forget that Botta is a PR Guy at heart, he knows how to play that game.

Update: Botta has re-opened Islanderspointblank.com. Of course one might point out that since the website never came down, it was never really “closed”. Either way, when you look at the situation, it’s a strange series of moves by Botta. He cryptically announces that he has to close IPB and that it’s beyond his control. He then leaves a message at Islandersmania.com about the situation. But Islandersmania has closed registration, meaning if you weren’t signed up for an account there you couldn’t see the post first hand. Now why that post on IM couldn’t have been point on IPB or his Fanhouse page which requires no registration is odd. It means that the story left itself to be twisted as people heard it from secondary sources. On top of it all, during his “Press Tour” Botta admitted as much that he didn’t NEED the Press Credentials to blog on IPB, which is something people (including me) pointed out earlier in this mess.

I’m sorry, but even if the Islanders are wrong, the whole thing comes off as Botta playing up for a story. He goes from well known among the Islanders with some national presence among hockey followers, to a full story on Puck Daddy, a long segment with the big name NYC Sports talker Mike Franseca, an Appearance on the VS show OverTime tonight and he was talked about with Bettman today on the NHL Hour show. He handled it and worked the situation in such a way as to fully benefit himself, without regard to anyone else. To purposely rile up the Islanders fanbase on what is a minor issue and to only serve your own ego is shameful.

There’s one other thing I want to talk about, the Islanders rebuild. With the recent team struggles a lot of people are down about it. But people are missing how badly Mike Milbury left the Islanders prospect wise and how long it takes a prospect to mature.

The Islanders had 42 Draft picks between 2001 and 2005. The most successful picks? Frans Nielsen (3rd Round 2002) Blake Comeau (2nd Round 2004) Chris Campoli (7th Round 2004) and Bruno Gervais (6th Round 2003). It’s not looking good for Comeau right now, or Campoli and Bruno for that matter to have long term NHL careers. All three are struggling currently.

Every single first rounder could be considered a Bust or a Bust for the Islanders. The best of the batch is Sean Bergenheim (2002) who the Islanders let go but managed to catch on with Tampa this year. The other picks? Robert Nilsson (now in Europe), Petteri Nokelaine (in Europe now) Ryan O’Marra (Can’t make the Oilers roster).

So the whole first half of this decade was almost a complete throw away draft wise.

Starting with 2006 (the first post Milbury draft) there was a definite move away from European player and towards High School and young North American prospects. While this has lead to a lot more players in the system, it does take longer to see the results from a draft class.

For reference, only 1 player remains with the Islanders from the 2005 class, Dustin Kohn. O’Marra was part of the Ryan Smyth trade, while the rest were busts.

But the 2006 draft of 13 picks currently has Kyle Okposo and Andrew MacDonald at the NHL level. Jesse Joensuu, Robin Figern, Rhett Rakshani, Tomas Marcinko on the AHL level and Brian Day and Shane Sims are both promising College Seniors.

So while the prospects have been stocked, it’s still going to take more time until a lot of them are ready to play in the NHL full time. Looking at two teams who have recently rebuilt, the Kings and Blackhawks, the drafts of the early 00s definitely helped them.

For example the Kings only have the following players on their roster from drafts starting with 2006:
Jonathon Bernier (backup goalie) (2006 1st Round)
Wayne Simmonds (2007 2nd Round)
Drew Doughty (2008 1st Round)

But from 2001-2005 theres
Jonathon Quick
Dustin Brown
Anze Kopitar
And the Kings were able to deal some of their picks for other pieces.

With the Blackhawks, the only players on the team from 06 and beyond are Kane and Toews. Not exactly chopped meat. But the core of the roster is from the 2001 – 2005 drafts, I’m not going to list every single successful draftee. But it once again shows the amount of time that your facing between drafting players and seeing their effect on an NHL team unless you get a Crosby or Ovechkin.

If your an Islanders fan and your worried about the rebuild, the youngsters are just about on the verge of getting there. There’s obvious talent on the team in Tavares, Okposo, Bailey, Moulson, Streit and Wisniewski. If the Islanders can keep them together while adding the kids from the 06-07-08 draft, the team will turn it around. But you can’t say that this rebuild is a fail already two years in, before the long term prospects start hitting the team.

Milbury destroyed the Islanders. If you look at the team and the prospects he was given, what he did to the team is horrible. The Islanders have had to build up from the ground floor prospect wise. One or two successful drafts would make a world of difference with the team today.