CALGARY, Alberta -- Say what you will about Mike Milbury. He might have
started a third wave of Long Island hockey reconstruction Saturday, and
certainly traded away yet another couple of players popular with whatever's
left of his dwindling fanbase. But he never attempted to disguise the gravity
of the situation he was putting his team and himself in.
If the bold -- some might say bizarre -- draft day moves he made
yesterday don't pan out, Milbury said, "it's my head."
Even Mad Mike thinks he's running out of lives as the boss of the New York
Islanders, a team generally recognized last year as the league's all-around
poorest team. But if that's true... could that perhaps be a good thing?
"I think it's a direction that we presented to the ownership group, but
it's a direction that makes sense for us," Milbury said of his latest great
management gamble. "Let's face it, the new owners didn't come into this
business to wait another five years for us to make the playoffs. They'd
rather make this happen sooner, and that was the direction that we had from
them. In return, we said we'll do that as long as we're not significantly
damaging ourselves in key areas."
When it comes to the Isles, damage is always a relative term. This is a
club that in recent years had owners either trying to avoid federal
indictments or trying to divest themselves of any player making more than the
minimum wage.
This is an NHL doormat with a general manager who came in like a
Rangerbuster, putting what appeared to be a young team with a bright future
on the ice. Several years later, let the count-them-out countdown start with
Darius Kasparaitis, go through Wade Redden, Travis Green, Bryan McCabe, Brian
Berard and Todd Bertuzzi, and finish with Ziggy Palffy.
That represents the core group, but not the whole lot of good players
Milbury has shuffled over the bridge after non-developed careers. It also
doesn't include the list of franchise goalies that never lived up to his
promises to fans about them.
Having had a ping-pong ball bounce his way this year, however, Milbury had
the chance Saturday to award his starving fans who saw nearly every player
they embraced traded away with a curly-haired future scorer named Dany Healey
to build around. Instead, Healey would be allowed to go to Atlanta, because
Milbury took a cue from yet another new set of owners -- (at least these guys
actually seem like they care more about players than they do pension checks
and prison bedchecks) -- and made draft day history.
|  | | Kevin Weekes' name is now on the list of former-Islander goalies in the NHL. |
Three years after making Roberto Luongo the highest picked goalie (fourth overall)
since the modern entry draft was instituted some 30 years ago, Milbury set a
new standard by making Rick DiPietro the first goalie to be taken as the No.
1 overall since Montreal's Michel Plasse in 1968.
In so doing, Milbury also managed to stay true to form. Just before
drafting DiPietro, he officially gave up on Luongo.
So let's count up his lost goalie list: Tommy Soderstrom, Tommy Salo, Eric
Fichaud, Felix Potvin, Roberto Luongo...
"I'm rolling the dice here a little bit," Milbury said. "Roberto Luongo is
going to be an excellent goaltender in this league. He's a class act and a
kid we would have been happy to ride with. But as the draft progressed it was
clear that the (perceived) value of Luongo was greater than the value of the
first overall pick. In our minds, if we could get DiPietro, he possesses an
element Roberto doesn't possess. We could have made an argument for either
one of these goaltenders, but we think (DiPietro's) unusually strong
puckhandling skills weighed out in his favor.
"He handles the puck as well as any goaltender in hockey today. Not just
any young prospect, but anyone in the league anywhere. That's an exceptional
talent."
So with that fresh idea in mind, Milbury moved. But in typical fashion, he
moved too fast and probably went too far.
He began by trading goaltender Kevin Weekes -- acquired last season in an effort to help Luongo develop at a careful pace -- along with defensive
prospect Kristian Kudroc and a second-round pick next year to Tampa Bay for
the Lightning's fifth-overall pick this year and and a seventh-round pick.
Milbury would use that fifth-overall to draft Raffi Torres, son of a
Mexican and a Peruvian who will try to dial into the kind of rookie magic
Scott Gomez did in New Jersey last season.
Then Milbury really shook the place when it was announced he'd also dealt
Luongo and center Olli Jokinen to Florida for wingers Oleg Kvasha and Mark
Parrish. Essentially, what a lot of critics would summarize about those moves
and the pick of DiPietro, is that Milbury not only rid himself of two
promising players, but now will force his team to start an 18-year-old goalie
this year, while hoping that Kvasha and Parrish turn out to be more than the
mediocre players a lot of people consider them to be.
Right... and hopefully wrong... on those two charges, Milbury would say.
As for the knock that a teenager can't carry an NHL goalie load: "Look at
Tom Barrasso's statistics," Milbury boomed about the former high school kid
Buffalo tossed into its crease in the early 1980s. "We have every intention
of giving Rick a chance to play for the New York Islanders in the fall. And
we have a proven backup in Wade Flaherty."
That bit of stunning opinion said, Milbury sensibly added, "It's a danger
spot, obviously, going with such a youthful goaltender, but if we need to
give him support, we will. But as dangerous as this might be, we think that
Raffi might have something going for him. It would have been safe to keep
Kevin and have him work in concert with Rick. But we felt we couldn't pass on
the opportunity to get a talented goal scorer."
Saying Torres, Kvasha and Parrish filled significant offensive holes his
club had, Milbury concluded, "Overall, it advances the case of the
Islanders."
Perhaps... but only if the self-assured DiPietro can be what he says he
is.
The Boston University goalie and native of Maine was a standout in the
World Juniors tournament last year, made history at the NHL draft Saturday...
and now says he's ready to conquer the world.
Or at least a few hockey fans on Long Island.
"It's the case of any first-overall pick," said DiPietro. "There always a
chance to fail or succeed, but I plan on working on things this summer that
will help me succeed at the next level. As a young goalie, you always look to
go to a good organization that isn't very deep at goaltending. Having dealt
Luongo and Weekes away, that'll be the case for me here. I'm not necessarily
going to say the Islanders aren't going to contend this year, either. I think
the new owners are doing some things to get some players that will hopefully
take this franchise to the playoffs."
Sure enough, Milbury had more "things" up his sleeve after he picked
DiPietro and Torres. He traded young winger Josh Green, fellow former
prospect of the future Eric Brewer (the Isles second pick behind Luongo in
'97) and a second-round pick for defensive leader Roman Hamrlik.
Another change of direction by the Isles' sleight-of-hand GM. Another
exodus of popular players from the Island.
"I don't think it's a warm and fuzzy feeling now," Milbury admitted. "But
I don't think you can make trades based on what the reaction is back at the
draft table. I understand the fans get attached to players are looking
forward to players that will be back in the fall. But we believe that for the
immediate future of this franchise and for the long-term future of this
franchise that we've made the right decisions."
Apparently, Milbury didn't make them alone. For none other than Sanjay
Kumar helped.
OK, so you have no idea who that is. Suffice it to say that this sub-40
Baby Boomer/Yuppie/new hockey fan might not be native to North American
sports, but is certainly powerful enough to educate himself on the game.
He plays soccer and races cars. What, he can't own a hockey team?
Kumar is half of the new ownership group of the Islanders, along with his
partner at Computer Associates, Inc., one Charles Wang. So Islesowners.com is
promising to spin an entirely new web of success for the area's long
suffering fans. And keeping late hours to do so.
"I was in the meetings with Mike and the scouts last night at 2 a.m.,"
said Kumar, who chuckled that he'd been to "one hockey game in my life," an
Islanders game as a teenager in 1976. "And there I am, asking all of these
off-the-wall questions. Why this? Why not do this? But that's my job here, to
bring in new ideas. I'm very confident about it.
"We're all in this together and I'm behind Mike 100 percent on doing what
he did today. This was a (joint) decision. And nothing comes without
controversy... But I didn't realize the draft could cause so much commotion.
Our phone was ringing off the hook up there."
Perhaps when Kumar isn't such a rookie owner having so much fun overseeing
yet another turnover of his team's roster, he won't be so supportive. If,
say, in another year or two the decision is made that maybe DiPietro wasn't
such a great pick and maybe they should have held onto Luongo or...
You can always second-guess. Unless you're in the position Mike Milbury
has put himself into now.
"Oh, well, we all need to feel like our jobs are on the line," said Kumar.
"I feel like my neck's on the line every day."
Rob Parent covers the NHL for the Delaware County (Pa.) Times. His NHL East column appears every week on ESPN.com.
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ALSO SEE
Isles shake things up with draft-day trades
ESPN.com's NHL Draft 2000 coverage
AUDIO VIDEO
 Mike Milbury puts his reputation on the line by drafting Rick DePietro.
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