It’s been a while since I posted something so I figured now would be a good time to get you guys our latest from the Back In The Day series. The below excerpt comes from the Toronto Star and details the rough road ahead for the Islanders…in 2001. You can look at the article two ways - a) either it is depressing to think that in the last seven seasons the Islanders have been unable to climb the mountain and are yet again among the league’s least impressive teams or b) with a good crop of young players, a very talented goalie, a solid coach, and improved attendance at the Coliseum the Isles are not nearly as bad off as there 2001 counterparts were. Your call.
The Isles did bounce back to make the playoffs the following season - featuring the epic series against the Maple Leafs and the Shawn Bates penalty shot.
Islanders coming to end of a trying season — Team focuses on getting out of NHL cellar
Mark Zwolinski
4 April 2001
The Toronto Star
Copyright (c) 2001 The Toronto Star
The New York Islanders are making headlines for two reasons these days: they are trying to avoid the ignominy of finishing with the NHL’s worst record this season and they are interviewing some good candidates for their coaching vacancy next season.
If they beat Toronto tonight in a very crucial game for the Leafs, they’ll also go down as the club that figured as highly as any in the Leafs’ downfall this season.
The Isles downed a first-place Leafs club 3-2 Dec. 15. The Leafs have lost 21 of 48 games since to plummet into playoff desperation.
The Isles are oblivious of the Leafs’ woes since they have endured a very trying season that has fallen well short of expectations.
Owners Sanjay Kumar and Charles Wang received kudos among their peers for taking a hard line, take-it-or-leave-it approach to contract negotiations with three key players: Roman Hamrlik, Zedeno Chara and Brad Isbister, who were told that players unsigned by Sept. 1 would not be offered contracts subsequent to that date.
Hamrlik, seeking $4 million (U.S.) a year, instead settled for $11.8 million over four years while Chara and Isbister accepted small pay hikes after missing the initial deadline.
Kumar and Wang also showed patience with a club that was filled with prime young talent and tabled the NHL’s biggest average size at 6-foot-2, 209 pounds.
They extended several votes of confidence to coach Butch Goring in the midst of a protracted period from December to March in which rumours of Goring’s imminent firing circulated regularly.
Goring was finally axed March 4 following a 6-0 blowout against Tampa Bay, a loss which marked the lowest point of the season for the club.
With the dust settled and Lorne Henning at the helm in an interim role, the Isles remain a problematic club with very poor attendance and in dire need of a new building.
The first step in restoring some of the lustre to the one-time Stanley Cup dynasty came to a close this week when GM Mike Milbury interviewed the final candidate on a list to fill the coaching vacancy for next season.
Former Penguins coach Kevin Constantine was in attendance in Long Island for the team’s 4-1 win over Pittsburgh Monday and was interviewed by Milbury. Other candidates are believed to be Ted Nolan, Robbie Ftorek, Jim Schoenfeld, Bryan Murray and Robbie Ftorek.
Former Leafs coach Pat Burns is also among the list of prime coaches currently lingering in unemployment. Milbury has yet to talk to Burns and insiders don’t expect him to.
The club has scheduled a coaching announcement for June 1 with Nolan, Ftorek and Murray the current favourites.
For the latest in our Back In The Day series, which shines a spotlight on excerpts from old news articles about significant/interesting events in the past, we decided to take a look at the 1997 draft. At the time, the draft was regarded as one of the deepest ever. Some guy named Joe Thornton went first.
For Islander fans, this draft was all about a franchise goaltender not named Rick DiPietro. For more details, see this excerpt from a Toronto Globe and Mail story written by Gare Joyce and published in June 1997. One warning, this story contains quotes from Mike Milbury. I know some Isles fans are allergic to Mad Mike so I just wanted to give you all a head’s up:
NHL’s draft production lacks dramatics Islanders closest to dealing, but in end pick promising goalie, top-rated defenceman without making a trade
GARE JOYCE
The Globe and Mail
23 June 1997
All material copyright Thomson Canada Limited or its licensors. All rights reserved.
PITTSBURGH — By all estimations, the 1997 entry draft was the deepest in the past five years and the most uneventful in recent memory. Despite rumours of teams bidding to move up, of GMs covetous of Val d’Or goaltender Roberto Luongo, none of the top 20 picks in the draft were flipped for immediate help.
The closest thing to drama was provided by New York Islanders GM Mike Milbury, who owned his team’s pick at No. 4 over all and the next selection, acquired from Toronto along with Kenny Jonsson last year for Wendel Clark and Mathieu Schneider.
In Pittsburgh, in the days leading up to the draft, the air was thick with 100-per-cent humidity and talk of Milbury’s desire to flog one or both of the top choices.
“In a perfect world,” Milbury observed, “we would come out of the draft with a centre and a left wing.”
It was far from a perfect world for Milbury. The top three picks in the draft were all centres. With the first pick by virtue of the league’s worst record and a little luck in the lottery, Boston selected Sault Ste. Marie centre Joe Thornton, the only draft-eligible player on Canada’s team at the world junior tournament last winter.
With the next pick the San Jose Sharks selected Seattle Thunderbirds centre Patrick Marleau, rated as the No. 2 skater in North America by NHL Central Scouting. Then the Los Angeles Kings called Finnish centre Olli Jokinen, whose shaven pate was a reminder to his new employers that he has obligations outstanding with Finland’s military.
The wild card was Luongo. Florida GM Bryan Murray said: “He’s the best goaltending prospect in a long time and teams are placing more value than ever on goaltenders. They’ve recognized that you can’t win with average goaltending.”
“We knew about Luongo all along, but he really put on a show at the [Canadian Hockey League] prospects game,” Milbury said. “I saw him in the Quebec [Major Junior Hockey] League playoffs against Hull. He didn’t have a lot in front of him, but he was really sensational.”
Milbury dismissed the idea that it’s harder to scout a goaltender than other positions. “It’s not that complicated,” the Islander GM said. “It comes down to whether he gets in front of the puck. [Luongo] did.”
But it also sometimes comes down to need. Though Luongo was clearly the likely name to be called in the four-spot, the Islanders did not seem to have a conspicuous need at that position. The Isles rifled Toronto for netminder Eric Fichaud, a Leaf first-round pick in ‘94, in a deal for forward Benoit Hogue. Milbury also has Swede Tommy Salo contending for the top job. Thus it figured that teams would bid on Luongo.
Milbury wasted no time in announcing the selection of Luongo, but that didn’t necessarily undo the scenario. With the rights to Luongo, Milbury was in a position to make the pad-kickers sweat out their offers.
Before making the fifth pick, Milbury had a conversation at the Tampa Bay table with GM Phil Esposito. The floor hummed with speculation, but nothing transpired. Going to need, Milbury had to have been interested in Chris Gratton or Jason Wiemer. Nothing was worked out. After taking a timeout, Milbury went to the mike and selected Prince George defenceman Eric Brewer, the top-rated blueliner in the draft.
“We had talks about one thing last night,” Esposito said. “He turned it into something else at the last minute.”
Afterward, Milbury said he had talks with one team about his picks with “a premier centre-ice man” involved. Edmonton GM Glen Sather said that he had talked with Milbury, possibly about a deal involving both the fourth and fifth picks, and thus opened speculation about Jason Arnott as bait.
“My staff talked me out of it,” Milbury said of the mystery centre.
It’s been a while since we ran one of our “Back in The Day” pieces. To refresh your memory, every once in a while we run excerpts from old articles capturing a big/interesting/notable event in Isles history. Today, we go back to April 2002 compliments of Newsday, smack dab in the middle of one of those heated Islander-Maple Leaf battles. Shawn Bates’ penalty shot was one of the few highlights for the Coliseum Heroes in those battles. I was at the game. Never heard the Coliseum louder.
ISLANDERS PLAYOFFS
A Penalty Shot in the Arm
7 minutes turn into 7th heaven
Johnette Howard
Newsday
FORGET THAT THIS drama started slowly before ending with a bang. Most spellbinders do. By the time Islanders center Shawn Bates curled toward the puck at center ice and began bearing down on Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Curtis Joseph for a penalty shot with just 2:30 to play, Game 4 of this first-round playoff series already had snowballed into a rousing, rollicking, breathless classic. A thriller. A seven-minute slice of bedlam.
With the sellout crowd poised to lift the roof off the Coliseum, Bates made sure it was a 4-3 Islanders’ win.
“You’re still shaking,” a TV commentator kidded Bates after he settled into the guest’s seat on the Islanders’ postgame show.
“Nerves,” Bates laughed, still wearing a slap-happy grin.
How many times did this switchback-filled game veer or seem over? Even after Bates rifled the puck into the roof of the net, past Joseph’s flinching right shoulder, this game wasn’t over until the Leafs pulled their rapidly fading goaltender for an extra attacker, then upped their advantage to two men when the Islanders’ Kenny Jonsson was sent off for a slashing penalty with 1:06 to play.
In the last 6:44 alone, the Islanders Kip Miller tied the game at 2 on a bank-shot goal off Joseph and defenseman Roman Hamrlik seemed to win it once for the Islanders just 1:40 later. When Hamrlik let a slap shot fly from just inside the Toronto blue line, it was more of a prayer than a rock-solid threat at the lead - until the puck banged off Joseph’s blocker, then bounced into the net. Hamrlik high- stepped in place like some delirious drum major and conjured up memories of the late Jim Valvano. Like Valvano, bless his heart, Hamrlik was just racing around looking for someone to hug.
The game appeared over - at least for 98 seconds. But the Leafs’ Paul Healey and Shayne Corson crossed behind the Islanders net and goaltender Chris Osgood - thinking Healey still had the puck to his right - never saw Corson curling around the right post and stuffing the puck between his legs to tie the game at 3.
That set up Bates’ heroics just 56 seconds later after the call by referee Brad Watson that probably never should have happened. Did Bryan McCabe deserve a penalty for hauling Bates down? Yes. But a penalty shot? Hard to believe.
“They’ll come out flying [in Game 4] with a bitter taste in their mouths,” Islanders winger Steve Webb warned. “We have to make sure we’re ready.”
Ready for anything. Ready, willing and able to pull out the sort of game they’ll be talking about for years.
[Update] Now with video!
