I also won't be talking about the signing of "character players" like Josef Vasicek and Jon Sim, and how we were told it's because of their heart and grit that they were signed, as opposed to the real reason that no one wants to play for the Islanders (except, for some reason, Bryan McCabe).
I want to talk about how Garth Snow messed up at the trade deadline this year.
I'm not anti-Snow. Sure, I thought it was a joke when Blogger Bryan texted me about them firing Neil Smith and promoting their back-up goalie (much like me texting him "Isles trade DP to Ottawa for Eaves, Corvo and 2 1st rounders"), but I think he isn't an awful GM, especially compared to Millbury.
When he traded the farm for Ryan Smyth, he did what he had to do. The opportunity came up, he swung the deal. The grand prize wound up being a few weekday sell-outs and 2 extra home games, but he did what he had to because he felt he had a team worthy of making the playoffs.
This year, he completely dropped the ball. He had to have known Rick DiPietro was hurt, unless he wasn't watching Versus during the skills competition when DP said into his mic "Fucked up my hip."
A bunch of his veterans, including key faceoff man Mike Sillinger, were hurt, and the ones that weren't should have been shipped out to make way for the future, not held onto in a pathetic, desperate, unintentionally funny attempt to make the playoffs.
The NHL is simple and cyclic (except for the Red Wings). Teams are bad, stay bad a few years, get high draft picks, sell off overpriced vets for more picks and prospects, have a few okay years, get good. Read the book on the Penguins (Fleury, Whitney, Crosby, Malkin, and Staal were all Top 5 picks).
When teams are good, they don't stay good for very long because of what they sacrificed to be there. The Rangers won the Cup in 1994 and Neil Smith gave up a lot for that, even noting that they would be bad for a while when he did it, and they were. Tampa Bay won in 2004, then signed Conn Smythe winner Brad Richards to a huge deal. So big, in fact, that had to let their goalie go. They then paid 4 players so much that they couldn't sign or keep any role players (see: Pavel Kubina moving to Toronto).
Then, there are teams that are bad but won't admit it. Teams like the 1998-2003 Rangers, or the current Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs should have had a firesale, but their players wouldn't waive no-trade clauses (bad management in John Ferguson, Jr.) and then they played decent down the stretch, giving them slight, slight hope for a top-8 seeding. The Rangers thought they were always one big name away from glory, so they spent the money they had and it brought nothing. They never re-built from within until 2004, when the upcoming CBA gave them no choice.
The Islanders were a bad team last year, even when they were winning. Mike Comrie will never be more than a 2nd line center on other teams. Sillinger shouldn't be playing 19 minutes a night at age 36. Hell, at age 26 he shouldn't have been. Miro Satan is not a top-line winger or your go-to guy with an empty net.
Yet, the Islanders stood pat. They didn't sell for the future. A team like Ottawa would have loved Satan, who would have contributed more than Cory Stillman eventually did for them. Ruslan Fedotenko is a proven playoff performer, scoring both goals in the Lightning's 2-1 Game 7 win over Calgary in the '04 Finals. He could have been a useful player in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia (instead of Vinny Prospal) or Dallas. Vasicek will never score 40 goals, but Nashville could have used him again (instead of Jan Hlavac) or maybe Calgary to give a pop to their offense.
They had no studs to trade away, no Smyth's, Marian Hossa's or Cristobal Huet's, but they could have fetched a 2nd and 4th rounder for Satan, and a 3rd rounder for Tank and Vasicek. This is a very deep draft, and those picks could have turned into something more than what they got for trading Marc-Andre Bergeron.
I think McCabe's wife grew up on Long Island and likes it here. They're probably the only people in the world who can afford to live here.
ReplyDeleteI agree with pretty much everything you said. The Islanders were lucky to make the playoffs in 06-07, so they figured they'd try the same sort of thing with veterans and one-year deals. It didn't work so well the second time around. At least they were only sunk by bad deals for one season, as opposed to four or five.
I think Garth Snow understands the CBA better than most GMs in that he gets that one bad deal can kill you (Yashin). So his ideas aren't bad. But guys like Fedotenko and Comrie aren't the answer, at least not with young (and cheap) stars there to carry the load. If I have to see Mike Sillinger on the first line again this season, I'm going to puke.
Then again, he's a better option than Claude LaPointe.
Excellent points Schiffman.
ReplyDeleteBilly Beane, the Oakland A's GM, was quoted as saying "either your building something special or your not."
And I couldn't agree with that sentiment more when it comes to building sports teams.
To many GM's don't rebuild and instead gun for the playoffs with a junky teams (like the Yankees the past few years.) Fans these days are smarter, they know more about the salary caps in sports and the value of prospects. I think fans would be more receptive to rebuilding than in years past.