Buyer's Remorse - Islanders Hire Mike Milbury

On July 5th 1996, the New York Islanders hired former NHL defenceman Mike Milbury to serve as the team's new head coach. Less than a year later, Milbury would be promoted to the General Manager position. Over the next 11 years, Milbury's actions would damage the Islanders roster, its prospect pool and its reputation so badly, that it would take a decade to overcome...
Why did the hiring of Mike Milbury give the New York Islanders so much Buyer's Remorse? Watch to find out!
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[@AlexSilver9]

Can't wait for a Peter Chiarelli edition for both Boston AND Edmonton.

[@shaunmattice6413]

Well, at least the Oilers considering the Bruins won a cup under Chiarelli; including the drafting of Marchand, Lucic (when he was actually good), and Pastrnak. Along with signing of Chara, Krug (undrafted) and trading for Tuuka Rask. He was awful for the Oilers, but no one can't argue he built a great team in Boston. Minus the trade of Seguin.

[@Seraph89_]

Did Chiarelli get his players to buy into team friendly contracts, or were the Bruins always signing deals like that?

[@lukeh2556]

@@shaunmattice6413 could be wrong but I think most of the team building in Boston was done right before chiarelli got there

[@tipsysmichigander6483]

LOL

[@lordrevanz16]

@@shaunmattice6413 actually Jeff Gorton, the Bruins interim GM at the time, drafted Kessel, Lucic, and Marchand. He also is the one who signed Savard, Chara, and traded for Rask. Ole Peter was the guy who drafted players like Zach Hamill. Gorton pretty much built the 2011 Cup team in a couple of months as interim GM. Dude is a legend up here.

[@KevynKing]

Can you imagine if Milbury didn't make like half these trades? Theoretically the Islanders could've had the goaltending tandem of Tommy Salo and a young Roberto Luongo, Zdeno Chara and Bryan McCabe on defense, Oli Joikenen, Todd Bertuzzi and a young Jason Spezza on offence. Among many many more. This team could've been deadly if the man would've put some faith in all that young talent.

[@leeviahvenjarvi372]

Just wanted to say that it is Olli not oli

[@KevynKing]

@@leeviahvenjarvi372 You knew exactly what I meant man. Not the easiest name to spell at 3 am off just memory.

[@judelind7644]

And Gaborik or Heatley 😂😂😂

[@Windyyyyyyyyy]

They also could've kept guys like wade redden

[@CJEstradaMartinez]

I'm not a NY Islanders fan, and every transaction he made makes me vomit. There would have been no stopping this team. There would have been at least several deep post-season runs, possibly a Stanley Cup or two. It's beyond heinous what "Mad Mike" did to the Islanders.

[@mattblom3990]

The picture with Milbury and Spano says it all.

[@WWENHLMTL]

Can you do a future episode of Buyer’s Remorse on the Scott Gomez-Ryan McDonagh trade?What a terrible trade that was for the Canadiens.

[@Al-jq6yp]

Scott Gomez was very good with Montréal, that not nothing he was named captain. Shure we dind't won a Stanley cup with the canadiens, but Mcdonagh he not good has Gomez. Montréal win this trade.

[@birdiec]

@@Al-jq6yp Gomez only played 196 games for the habs, getting only 108 points. He wasnt captain, he was an assistant. His stock was so low when they flipped him he was nearly thrown away for scraps. McDonaugh on the other hand played 516 games for the rangers getting 238 points. Gomez retired in 2015. McDonaugh is still a top D man. Montreal may have won in the very short term. But long term, rangers.

[@davidwood2831]

Plus being able to get rid of Gomez contract they were able to sign Gaborik who put up a lot more points than Gomez did

[@Al-jq6yp]

@@birdiec its normal Gomez retiered in 2015 beacause he started in the late 90's

[@tipsysmichigander6483]

@Sabian Vorachev Agreed

[@zo.v1601]

How does a guy with a resume like this get a job as a broadcaster? This guy's hockey sense tops out at beating some fan with a shoe

[@joer8854]

The worst GM in Leafs history is now a senior analyst with the owner's sports station. They are the bloody people who fired him. It was part of the agreement purchasing the team that he was to be fired. He literally admitted that the previous owners (Ontario teachers union) said they would give him whatever it takes to win a cup. Blank check and free to do whatever it took. The only time he made it to the playoffs was the 2013-14 season the collapse happened. Since the 1917-18 season, the Leafs never went more than 3 seasons without a playoff appearance before Brian Burke. From 2008-09 to 2012-13 the Leafs made the playoffs once.

[@CJEstradaMartinez]

@@joer8854 Oh, the Brian Burke era. Another dark period for long-suffering Maple Leafs fans. I never liked him during his Vancouver and Hartford tenures. He's nothing but pure hot air.

[@CJEstradaMartinez]

@@joer8854 It was the 2012-13 lockout-shortened season. Also, Brian Burke was fired before that season started.

[@joer8854]

@@CJEstradaMartinez He was fired in January 2013.

[@dayleneddins5382]

@@CJEstradaMartinez and it's bad enough that the Penguins actually hired Brian Burke

[@hyghyg8060]

The one person who disliked this was Mike Milbury

[@disneyfan8719]

While I'm not trying to defend Milbury here (he doesn't even deserve to be defended. Lol) I heard that some of the awful moves he made like drafting Rick Dipietro came from meddlesome ownership by Charles Wang. He even wanted Milbury to give Michael Peca a 10 year deal (which he refused) as well as Dipietro that 15 year contract before Garth Snow caved. And to make matters worse, after Milbury stepped down, Wang hired Stanley Cup winning GM Neil Smith who only lasted 40 days in Long Island because he couldn't tolerate Wang's constant meddling, and then hired an inexperienced Garth Snow just to make him his puppet.

[@paveldatsyuk7175]

JackHammer87 good tid bit , thanks

[@Eibarwoman]

So Milbury and Snow were more disastrous ownership than outright GMs in talent.

[@felkgoop5461]

And he has the nerve to put his two cents in on some trades when nbc is broadcasting games

[@CJEstradaMartinez]

He shouldn't be allowed to talk after his horrific tenure on Long Island.

[@benjaminheuer3184]

Mike beat a fan with a shoe

[@justanotheruser6252]

What

[@CJEstradaMartinez]

J R needs to beat him with a shoe. He reeks of arrogance.

[@alexzeller8774]

The way you emphasize "Roberto Luongo and Mark Parrish" makes me smile so much, especially as Lu is my fav athlete of all time

[@donmor8029]

vadim shipachyov- las vegas..... karl alzner montreal..but demoted to the ahl last yr and didnt even play this yr for the habs. and of course loui eriksson or milan lucic... keep up the good work odd man ruh n stay safe

[@emmettrego9719]

Happy Easter whoever sees this!

[@chancegg00]

Happy thanksgiving

[@lando.50]

You know I’ve been waiting for this

[@patrickjames163]

Milbury shouldnt be allowed to watch hockey after his reign on the isles

[@H3wJd0nG]

just when i thought this channel couldn´t get any better

[@rooseveltbrentwood9654]

for a second i thought he was back in NY. I almost vomited.

[@CJEstradaMartinez]

Relax, it was just a dream.

[@floridaman451]

Carlos Martinez thank god

[@treerat7631]

He's pissed off so many people he wont find another job

[@CJEstradaMartinez]

@@treerat7631 Who else has Mike Milbury pissed off?

[@treerat7631]

@@CJEstradaMartinez perttey much everyone

[@TheEDFLegacy]

Oh boy.... HEEEEEEEEEEEEERE WE go.

[@philipcoggins9512]

In fairness to the DiPietro drafting, he was a pretty good goaltender, while that contract he signed was awful, he was one of the best goalies in the league running upto that signing. He then was constantly injured which ultimately what DiPi is known for... However, if he doesn't trade Luongo away he doesn't need to draft DiPi where he did...

[@chad_b]

Mike Milburn was so bad as a gm that all you can do is laugh lol

[@maxrcrypto]

The fisherman logo sums up this era for NYI

[@BSfromCS]

Mike Milbury felt he was making the right decisions to further the Islanders organization, and in the moment had the best interests of the team in mind.... but first, a message from the team scouuuuuuuts!

[@brenislanders]

I really _didn't_ need this video.

[@love4nycyaya]

Garth Snow takes so much heat for the DiPietro signing but, it was mostly The fault of Charles Wang. Wang hired Snow with the agreement he sign DiPietro. He didn't care what it cost as long as it got done.

[@Islanders83]

lt0306 it would have been a bargain if DiPietro stayed healthy.

[@love4nycyaya]

@@Islanders83 DiPietro had a .901 career save percentage when he signed it. Possibly he could have been great but not likely. I wasn't defending DP or Garth, but I was blaming Mr. Wang for the signing.

[@Islanders83]

lt0306 he hurt himself in the All-Star game. He was miked up and you literally heard him scream in pain when he hurt his knee. The whole point of the contract was that everybody in the league knew he was getting better as each season went on, he was on a crappy team. They signed him to the contract because if he had stayed healthy and continued his trajectory it would’ve been a bargain. $4.5 million for 15 years when other goalies were making twice that, would’ve been a great deal

[@FreeJaffa92]

Wow, I live in a Rangers household and I’ve seen Millbury on a ton of broadcasts. I had no idea how bad at his job he was!

[@SarahMaywalt]

I literally scream "SHUT UP! YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HOCKEY!" every time I see him on screen.

[@CJEstradaMartinez]

@@SarahMaywalt That's serious anger and hate.

[@sentanyl3399]

@@CJEstradaMartinez but it's at Mike Milbury so it's completely warranted.

[@CJEstradaMartinez]

@@sentanyl3399 I understand. He comes off looking very smug and quite arrogant.

[@MichaelSchiz]

I had a feeling this episode was coming

[@BeastOfMetal1989]

Milbury is on Twitter now, guys. Do with that information what you will...

[@pennsylvanianrrfoamer]

You should do a story on the Colorado Eagles who joined the now-defunct CHL in 2003, and then in 2011 got membership to the ECHL. The Eagles would go on to obtain AHL membership in 2018.

[@tylerhuntdesign]

Not fair to compare Snow's tenure to Milbury's even when you factor the horrendous DiPietro contract into the mix.

[@AyeThatsHandsomePete]

No wonder he was always trashing the pens on national tv as an analyst. He was still salty they fleeced him for Straka and Kasperitis.

[@JarradBruessel32]

You have to include ken holland in this for after the salary cap was initiated. From 2009 and on it became hell in Detroit.

[@ronryan7398]

Occasionally a player makes a good executive or coach.(Yzerman, Sakic, Gainey, Robinson) Usually it turns into a disaster. Because you can skate doesn’t make you capable of managing millions of dollars or negotiating a contract.

[@wa2k99]

These are the good old days of the islanders.

[@Jussiiii3]

Oh my Ruutu with that pick too 😂

[@jonathancote9372]

you miss the Pierre Turgeon trade to montréal, on paper that day it wasan even trade but one year later, muller and schneider pale in compare to turgeon and malakhov

[@cowetascore8476]

Maloney admits today he had no idea what he was doing. It was his first GM job.

[@jonathancote9372]

@Tedge77 Sommer my bad i tough since he took the team in 1995 that he would have made a trade in 1995, just tought too quickly

[@allsystemsgo8678]

That was Maloney. Who also stupidly traded Uwe Krupp, and drafted the great Bret Lindros

[@ronryan7398]

The guy will always be remembered for beating a fan with his own shoe.

[@CaptainCowboys11]

Pain

[@angushiltz4880]

Ok I have to say Milbury does know hockey and talent. But unfortunately you have to blame a lot of the moves he made on the owner. The owner put a lot of pressure on Milbury to get veteran players and in order to make the owner happy he had to give up the youngsters. The owner never understood about developing the young players, he wanted things his way and Milbury had to juggle what he wanted and what was good for the team. And you can look at the job Snow did in the same way. Snow never wanted to give Rick D that contract. The owner forced Snow to do it, as well as a number of other bad moves. Milbury gets the blame but I am not sure if he should get all the blame. Ownership has really screwed the Islanders more than people realize.

[@AtodaO]

6:18 - brutal... imagine not getting played for 17 YEARS omg....

[@marting1984]

I'm only half way through the video and i'm already angry at Milbury.

[@freddyelder85]

This is so hard to watch. I couldnt finish it after the first 2 trades documented in this video. Milbury belongs in jail

[@leeviahvenjarvi372]

My friend : Gm milbury or coach milbury? Me: whats worse lol.

[@takodahager4165]

I grew up during the dark ages. I 1st became a fan during the milbury years. And then shit hit the fan when snow made things worse

[@TheAngryCanadian1109]

The islanders would’ve had the best defensive core in the league had Milbury didn’t make any stupid trades (Chara, redden, Luongo, and mccabe)

[@iron60bitch62]

Here’s another fun fact he was actually investigate it and I believe he was charged with threatening a 12-year-old at a peewee hockey tournament boy those Boston guys are tough

[@ricardoj85]

I love nhl lore.

[@matthewlinz6336]

The sad thing is if the islanders had drafted Heatley instead of DiPietro them Dan Snyder would still be alive today

[@theanteaterparadox344]

Without those years, we wouldn't have the fun were having now.... #LGI

[@alishanas9380]

Maloney, Milbury and Snow. Quite the trifecta. Then there's Wang.

[@gordieparenteau6555]

The man known for two things: beating up a New York Rangers fan with a shoe, and fucking up the New York Islanders. BTW, as long as we're talking about the Islanders and buyers remorse, can we talk about that ridiculous rebrand with the Captain Fishstick logo and jersey? Who's fucking bright idea was that hot garbage?

[@iron60bitch62]

Little tiny fact after Millbury made a number of disrespectful comments to The Russian defenseman Darien Kasparaitis once threatened to kill Mike Milbury as you walked out to his car in the parking lot when Millbury dared him to do it Casper I just had to be restrained by six people Millbury ran to his car and decided to take four days off Kasparaitis probably would’ve gone at the very least to jail

[@hophop3806]

In defence of the Yashin trade just remember the Senators traded Yashin and his 491 points in 504 games because they didn’t want to pay him more than Alexandre Daigle. They won the trade but the reason that it happened on the Ottawa side was terrible

[@felkgoop5461]

Can you imagine if the Sens had suckered that trade out of him for Daigle instead

[@hyghyg8060]

Felk Goop let’s face it Milbury would’ve given them a couple extra draft picks like their 2009 first round pick if it was Daigle

[@Rysto32]

You've gotten confused on your timeline. The Daigle/Yashin contract thing happened in 1993. Daigle was long gone from the team by 2001. Ottawa traded Yashin because he had literally walked out on the team for the 1999-2000 season despite having one year left on a valid contract with the Senators. He wanted the contract torn up and a new one negotiated. Ottawa refused, and Yashin was forced to play the 2000-2001 season for the Senators before they traded his RFA rights to the Islanders.

[@hophop3806]

Rysto32 ahhhh thank you, sorry about that. I still see it as Daigle’s and Managments fault, Yashin was worth more than 3.6 million

[@felkgoop5461]

So does Ottawa just not like to pay players other than Bobby Ryan. Cause isn’t that why they traded Duchene, Stone, and why Alfredsson signed with Detroit?

[@arttumatiasnuutinen]

dont forget the 2000 5th overall pick was Raffi Torres

[@ylegin]

dark times!

[@SarahMaywalt]

Jesus Christ. For a moment, I thought the Islanders had hired him again. Don't do that to me! This year is bad enough!

[@albertleppo8139]

You'd get more engagement if you cleaned up the thumbnail image and added a caption that more or less sums up the theme of the video.

[@Infoseek777]

Good Gawwwd.....how does he still show his face around the nhl......

[@danny9405]

The damage was irreparable. The islanders would have been better off literally doing nothing but throwing darts at a draft board. It’s haunting that this man has any credibility in the league even as a broadcaster.

[@THELEAFSFAN]

Wow

[@BryanHalo123]

Mulbury was bad. But you do this wrong on a few metrics. MM got good returns on many trades, but flipped the players before they could help NYI. To do this right you need to show a trade tree, the trade results down branch. And what teams do with draft picks is even more complex, it's not a given the trading team would have drafted the same player, especially when you're talking a third rounder. Reference Sportsnet's Steve Dangle's trade tree mega vids on KZbin to see how best to do this.

[@Sebyleafs4]

Do you know who Cliff Pu is?

[@charliem9831]

In defense of Garth Snow, it was the owner the push for the DiP contract. Garth had little to do with it.

[@empire0]

All those awful trades and he wasn't even fired, he resigned 😂

[@treerat7631]

Mad mike

[@bexlyspeed]

Uhh you forgot that Berard won the Calder trophy with the islanders, that’s was not one of milbury’s bad trades

[@TheMrAesthetic]

Hey love your videos but making arguments that later round picks being traded and then turning out to be good players is not sound. If a third round pick ends up being g a gem that also means that 30 other teams missed out on that player twice.

[@TheAngryCanadian1109]

Mike Milbury frequently drafted busts or trade future studs for busts. Had he not did that the islanders would’ve had a better defensive core than New Jersey and one of the best defensive cores in the game. (Chara, Bobby Lou, wade redden, imagine a core like that)

[@TheMrAesthetic]

@@TheAngryCanadian1109 okay cool but that doesnt change my point lol

[@charismatic9904]

Id love to be able to do such a horrible job and keep my job for over a decade

[@SharksAttack]

Berard was great before his bad eye injury.

[@tipsysmichigander6483]

GM/Coach/GM Yeah. Not even close to the same skill set comes into play. Not a good idea. Chara one of the best of his generation? No.

[@rikut9220]

OLLI JOKINEN!

[@mattblom3990]

Mike Mulbury would have traded the 1st overall pick in 2005 for Marc-Andre Fleury and a 2nd.

[@animus13racer]

i never understood why people listen to Milbury or Barry Melrose opinions when they both clearly don't understand hockey. i can't stand it when either one talks on tv.

[@kapo2012fb]

😂😂😂😂🍾🍾

[@justinmassey44]

Chara the best defensemen of his generation... HAHAHA

[@sentanyl3399]

I hated this man just from seeing him on TV when watching live games, well before I even knew how terrible of a gm he was

[@daveyboy_]

And after all these fuck up's he's an announcer on NBC

[@sportsfan3236]

Do the Patrick Roy trade

[@davidcoleman730]

I mean yeah, he made shitty moves, but if the owners are the ones telling him to do it, then that’s on them and he’s just doing what “the bosses” want him to do.

[@donmor8029]

peter chiarelli as a gm wasnt too bad but he sucked as edmontons gm..or brad richards signing with new york rangers..i believe they r still paying him until 2024 or 2025 and hes not even playing anymore

[@barn1980]

The Islanders are still paying Rick DiPietro to this day and owe him money thru 2029.

[@CJEstradaMartinez]

At least they got Alexei Yashin's awful contract off the books. It only took them eight years.

[@reignofrock]

Can't go wrong discussing how awful Milbury was lol.

[@gjbeaudry1484]

And he sucks in the booth too!!!

[@AGXtube]

SUB FOR THIS MAN!

[@jadenippersiel912]

How tf does he coach one season, do a bad job and then become GM! And coach!

[@TheAngryCanadian1109]

jaden ippersiel clown management

[@megaboom69]

Milbury destroyed the Islanders

[@allsystemsgo8678]

First off, trading Redden for Berard wasn't a bad trade. Berard won the Calder trophy as an Islander which is conveintly left out. I didn't love the Linden for Bertuzzi/McCabe deal but hindsight is 20/20. Bertuzzi played in a lackadaisical fashion for the Islanders. They tried to get him going, but he just didn't care. Had they been able to add payroll maybe they could of brought in veterans to help the young guys like him.

[@jpwjr1199]

Mike Milbury was a good coach, not a good GM

[@kheldaur2107]

I think Mikes parents regret bringing him to this world.