Rob The Hockey Guy

No, not what is he doing here with Charles Wang, but this time the former goaltender has gone goalie shopping crazy! Three weeks ago, Snow signed former Oilers #1 goalie Dwayne Roloson to a two-year deal. Yesterday he signed former Flyers #1 goalie Martin Biron to a one-year deal. All fine and dandy, until you consider that they already have Rick DiPietro and his 15 year contract (he has 12 years left on that by the way). Surely they’re not getting ready to trade DiPietro… are they? Who knows on Long Island, where this doesn’t even crack the top 10 weird things they’ve done in the last few years.

Top 10 “weird” things the Islanders have done in the last 15 years:

1. Traded the best young goalies in the league (Roberto Luongo) along with former #3 overall draft pick (Olli Jokinen) for Oleg Kvasha and Mark Parrish. Why did he do this? See #2.
2. Drafted Rick DiPietro #1 overall, passing over Dany Heatley and Marian Gaborik.
3. Traded Zdeno Chara, the #2 overall pick (Jason Spezza) and Bill Muckalt for Alexei Yashin. Chara for Yashin one-for-one would have been a steal, same with Spezza. Heck, Muckalt one-for-one would have been better than having Yashin’s crippling contract.
4. Signing Alexei Yashin to a 10 year, $87.5 million contract. Ten year contracts are all fine and dandy, for young guys who are consistent. Not exactly something Yashin has ever been accused of.
5. Hiring Neil Smith on June 8, 2006 and then FIRING him one month eight days later! Really did their due dilligence in that hiring. And who did they replace him with? See #6…
6. Hiring your backup goalie (Garth Snow) as your new general manager. No need to pay your dues or anything, here’s the most important job in the organization, Garth.
   
7. Signing Rick DiPietro to a 15 year contract. The move could have been a good one if he stays consistent for 15 years and stays healthy. Whoops.
8. Trading for rental Ryan Smyth in exchange for Robert Nilsson, Ryan O’Marra and a first round pick. I’ve got nothing against trading for a rental player, but trading 3 good young players for a good (not great) player just to help you squeak into the playoffs and get beat in the first round? Not smart.
9. Trading Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan McCabe and a 3rd round pick (Jarkko Ruutu) for Trevor Linden. Linden was on the down side of his career while Bertuzzi and McCabe were both highly touted prospects who went on to having some very productive years.
10. Allowing Mike Milbury to keep his job for so long. Milbury was the GM in Long Island for over 10 years! When you consider that #1, 2, 3, 4 and 9 on this list are courtesy of Milbury, you can really see how crazy this was.

(Any mention of Mike Milbury on this blog shall be followed by a video of him beating a man with his own shoe)