REALITY CHECK
The cost of stepping up the rebuilding project
At the risk of acknowledging the latest fabricated trade rumor that has only led to prematurely excited Comments and frantic emails, let’s approach it this way.
Say another team has decided, for whatever reason, to trade a 32-goal scorer who turns 24 years old on Election Day. Let’s also make the easy leap the Islanders have a big interest in this player because he’s young and really, really good.
In any trade for a young, potential all-star – the latest completely made-up fictional scam rumor or any legitimate proposals involving before-their-prime standouts that may cross Garth Snow’s desk – here are the only true assets the Islanders possess that any GMs would consider.
The A+ List:
The Islanders’ first round pick in the 2009 draft
The A List:
Kyle Okposo
The B+ List:
Josh Bailey
The B List:
Sean Bergenheim
Chris Campoli
Robin Figren
Travis Hamonic
Jack Hillen
Trent Hunter
Note: This is not a list of just young assets. It only looks that way. This is a complete reality checklist of the primary assets a team willing to move an outstanding young player – someone who has already accomplished something in the NHL – would want in return from the Islanders. Depending on the talents of the player the Islanders acquired, it would take more – in some cases a lot more – than just one of the above to get a deal done.
Another reality: the Islanders are not even remotely close to making an impact deal anytime soon. In fact, they might not be for months.
This is how it goes when you’re rebuilding almost from scratch, starting with the kids you picked up in a solid 2006 draft. You do not go for quick fixes, and the chance of being able to acquire 24-year old studs without raiding your own closet and only getting worse is very, very slim.
Discuss. Comments.
60 Responses to REALITY CHECK
The cost of stepping up the rebuilding project
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islestherapy says:
can we please go back to discussing last night’s debacle? I’m not ready to move on just yet.
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Darren says:
It makes no sense for another team to make a trade with the Isles. NYI really has nothing to offer. Stick to the plan!
It’s tough to swallow! I know because I with you all. But you really have to stick with the plan. To turn back now is just setting the franchise back another 2-3 years added to how many other years of rebuilding we have.
This team will make the turn! -
rob section 315 says:
please do not trade the number 1 pick holy christmas please
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Just That Guy says:
DP for Brown!
lol
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Chris TMC says:
Chris is right- thats what any team would demand for any “blockbuster-ish” type of deal. No thanks. And all the talk about trading guys like Tambs for gold is just pipe dreams. Tambellini is going to do one of three things: Get put on waivers and get picked up by another team, get put on waivers and go down to the Bridge, or step it up and produce. Thats the order of likelihood as far as Im concerned, as well.
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Dallas MacDonald says:
As much as I’d love to have Dustin Brown, the cost would be overwhelming. LA is in a rebuilding process as well, but they are light years ahead of us in quality yound players. Their young defense alone could be the best in the NHL in 3 years. Doughty, Johnson, Hickey, Teubert. Like I heard Ken Holland say once, you need to have chips in order to join the card table. And we don’t have the chips. We will if we stay the course of the plan and just look at this year as a growth year and not get too upset at the results. OUr kids are growing.
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Despite the Islanders record, it is still too early to make any deals. It’s too soon to judge the talent of our young players. If this is going to be a youth movement, keep it that way, and continue to draft well next year. When this season is over, then you start making moves.
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Isles72 says:
The only player I would move right ow is Comrie. He is absolutely worthless at his price. Although he is relatively young, he doe not make others better. He needs better players around him to make him better, which really says it all.
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Vlad from Brooklyn says:
100% agree with Isles72. Comrie has got to go! He is the wrong fit with the team.
His style of play is completly different from others. I wish this trade would be possible.
I also agree with tho others above: stick with the Plan. We looked very good for 40 minutes. If Isles learn to do it for another 25-30 minutes, will get much more results. I still think that the team has a lot of potential. -
Dan says:
It’s ludicrious because the Kings just named this kid Captain. He scores, he can pass, he hits and is an impact player. Don’t listen to that rumor. It makes about as much sense as Garth Snow becoming GM….mmmm
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Scott from Newburgh says:
In case you missed my comments on the game recap part of the blog. This goes right to what CB just wrote:
Since it was throwback night and we are wearing the jerseys from 1972, we are going to have to treat this team as if it were 1972. When you break it down we are an expansion team. It’s a team of vets that no one really wants and a lot of inexperienced kids. Just like 1972. There are going to be alot more nights like last night then there will be wins. There are no quick fixes for this team. No big time player are going to want to come here yet.
We are going to have to this the old-fashion way with time and good drafting. I know no one wants to here that in the win now or else world we live in, but if we don’t then shrewd GM’s will swoop in and take anything good we have in this organization just so we can get that apparent quick fix that won’t work.I’m not thrilled about it but that’s the reallity of the situation. So just fire up your flux-capaciter and set your timeclock to November 1972. Get out your bellbottoms,8 tracks, afros and your old Eddie Westfall jersey. Also, bring snacks it’s going to be a long ride.
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Jim M says:
what part of rebuild do people not understand? Yes the isles blew a huge lead and the game but also showed that the system has some great potential. This season has absolutely nothing to do with winning and losing, it is about working in this system and building great team chemistry between these young guys. Everybody is in panic mode 10 games into the season. why would we bother trying to make any deals this season? REBUILD. lets do it right this time.
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beatlebailey says:
can we throw a message board flag for copy and paste of comments from one part of the blog to another?..lol..good thing i didnt miss your comments scott from newburgh
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Brian B says:
CB…how about deals that would help the rebuilding process? Dealing guys like Comrie, Guerin, Weight, and Sillinger, who are free agents after this year, or Martinek, Witt(who I love,) Gervais etc. for picks and decent prospects. My only question is, aren’t the Isles beeter off trading these guys sooner rather than later, because their value would be much higher since a team would have them for almost the entire season? That also gets me thinking why Satan, Tank, or Vasi weren’t traded last year. Getting something in return is better than nothing. Just a thought.
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oh yea and CB a few more things…if you had to guess…what do you think the Isles plan is on draft day 2009? Could they possibly deal away a top 3 pick (wouldn’t think so) for more picks or players? Do you think the Isles will fill a need or just take the best player available? And lastly…are Tavares and Hedman that good?? From what I’m hearing Tavares reminds people of Bossy with his scoring ability…and Hedman-Pronger comparisons are frequent.
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Pride-N- Passion NYI Hockey~ says:
picked up the new sweater yesterday….
(shopnhl.com).. (telling me two weeks before it leaves warehouse??More time if i Had it personalized(bummer)
So bought it blank & will bring it to Broadway!!Was wondering since i was not able to make it there …
did they sell Authenticated one’s with names on the back?finally the Islanders Got it right.. in prior years it was a nightmare to find a real Authentic one!
Score one for The marketing People Finally!!Just curious on how they delievered it to the fans?
Thanks for any feed back to thislets go Isles..Lets Go Islanders!
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Chris H says:
PnP – no authentics available yesterday. said it will be at least 2-3 weeks before they are and they will be $300 (without the lettering). Got my 5 year old his new youth jersey for his hockey lessons though and Josh Bailey was there to sign it. He even took a pic with him which was nice…very personable kid.
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Very Cool….
Soundes like an all around pr move done by the club!!still annoying that reebok releases this joint effort with the NHL,
yet on the day its released you still can not buy the real one??Go Figure, well all good I will wait patiently bought my first jersey in 8 years .. as what else… a matter of Pride.. that they are trying to do some of the little things the right way,
gives me hope that one of these days managment will put it all together!
On & Off The Ice!!
thanks again Chris!P.S. Good Luck with your son’s Participation in youth Hockey may he be the Next Hansen,merrick,Pavasi, scuderi,komisarek, higgins! I
Hope he gets Used to That Ny Islander Sweater!! -
Good PR move*
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CB, Petrov could be added to that list has all the attributes to be an Impact Powe winger in The NHL!
(enigmatic Russian & all)I’m thinking you left him off the list, due to the current lack of agreement transfer wise between the NHL & KHL.
Hope This Issue can be Resolved sooner then later.. I like others before , Would love to see this Kid make it to The Island!! -
Isles Fan in Ulster County says:
This would be a devastating to the Plan if executed. No reason for LA to make the deal, and the Isles would have to give up too much for it to happen. I’m glad it is just a rumor.
On Hockeybuzz, Eklund had some (in my opinion) good rational why the Isles going for Khabibulin would be a good move (not that he said the Isles were going after the Wall). I doubt that the Isles are looking to for the Wall, but the rational made perfect sense especially because it would unload Comrie. Comrie needs to go. He doesn’t look like he is on board with the team.
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kevin says:
well first off brian b, witt and martinek are not going to get traded. second, to the comment 2 above, petrov can’t go on this list because he may not eveen come. if he does come then he could be a grade A prospect. also, i am not sure okposo is an A prospect. i say more like a B+.
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guerin13 says:
the only that we’re adding a good player anytime soon is if we agree to take a bad contract from a team in salary cap trouble. we would insist on a good player being thrown in to make the deal worth it for us.
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due again to transfer agreement,
he was quoted in a Russian article as saying he wnats to play in the nhl someday! -
wants*
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yeah but isles suck so why go to a crappy nhl team when you can thrive and make big bucks in the khl. he may end up like blake wheeler
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who the hell cares about the khl? it is now always about the money with some of these guys. If he wants to make a big name himself he should come to the NHL and i am pretty sure it has to be with the isles that cannot change
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dave says:
They have to get rid of comrie. He thinks he is better than he is and all that does is lead to horrible turnovers at the blueline when he tries to make dumb-ass passes or beat a guy one on one. I’m so tired of seeing him try that cross ice pass through three opponents that gets picked off and leads to an odd-man rush or breakaway. He’s dead weight; play tambs or comeau and lose him!
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Hurrapop says:
Comrie reminds me of a fellow called Alexei Yashin… I’m just saying
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cags77 says:
Stick to the plan. I like some of the older players but get rid of them for picks at the trade deadline. It’s going to get even worse for the Isles before it gets better. Then in 4 years we will have a new building with a young great team and this nightmare will be over:)
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jim, he likes it in russia and he has a name over there. thats why we got him in the 3rd round even though he was frst round material.
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Only problem in his first two years Comrie will not come close to putting up the points that yashin did for us.. a forty goal scorer in this league two times as well.. Yashin was enigmatic,
(appropriate word used when describing a culturally different people then us)
though if you look at it from another then an onflated salary we had to pay him at that time (irrelevant as usual when wang took over)….
anyway my point is this..
Yashin was better then avergae player in this league,, aloof at times yes..though on e canot question his talent it was trhere, maybe just not to the level fans felt he was getting payed…
Yaashin in my humble opinion would actually help this team right now.. all things being even he would probably be the best play maker on this current rooster…
Combine that with the fact we are 10 million under the cao right now, and no one will be beating down our door this year to make some of that 10 mill…
Then to me it might have been better to keep him one or two more years… if we knew we would be rebuilding with even older & more declining players then him…
dont get me wrong i like the Vetrans weight & guerin and respect them deeply… yet if not for the stigmatism attached by the fans & his retart agent Gandler.. Yashin would probably be the leading scorer on this team right now..whats done is done and we have moved on.. yet one thing i want to add yashin liked long island and the team money aside, and you could see at times he felt the pain on not being able to carry the franchise on his back.. just was not his style, he was better served as a top table setter as he aged with the occasional wicked wrist shot he possessed.. to me he was a stand up guy who was caught between to cultures and a team that was unable to put to upgrade enough to take some of the pressure off him!
so in the playoffs he struggled being the go to guy instead one having a second or third as most clubs do these days!
Tell you this without Yashin blake would have and never again will reach those goal totals!
Yashin.
games played -850
Goals scored-337
Assist’s-444
Point totals-781not a bad nhl career!
Remember we were forced to overpay him as is now, it was then …
No One Wanted To Play Here to have the Season we did that year it was in part due to him overpayed and all..He was decent in my book
with all due respect.. I’m just saying!lets go Isles Lets Go Islanders!!
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*inflated Salary*
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veterans* as usual sorry for the grammatics/typos.. ty!
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the prob was yashin was that he played soft, and acted like he didnt want to be here. he had a point per game but was injured a lot. he also had a hefty hefty hefty contract.
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that was mentioned kevin.. hefty contract does not change overall good numbers by nhl standard.. and again you know why is contract was hefty! (we had to overpay)
or else 2001-02 never happens!Not that it was a great season.. yet its the best we have had in this decade of hockey!
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Vinny says:
Brown is not moving. LA is not in any better a position than we are and Brown is immensely important to their rebuild. They wouldn’t take question mark players from us in exchange for their arguably best player.
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EdTurner says:
Of please, Eklund said this, Eklund said that.
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apower play line right now with yashin weight & guerin strei & campoli at the blue line would be better then anything they currently have debatable maybe.. worse then current pp top line… hmmm?
I say no!I’m well aware of this plan and sticking to the youth movement.. yet while we continue to build the bridge towards that future , just wonder what how much worse we would have been??
lets Go Isles.. lets Go Islanders!
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*Yashin, one more 30 something in a team that still has plenty of them*
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we didnt have to overplay beacuase we didnt have to trade for him.i was just listing reasons i didnt like. thats all. btw ottawa prospect alexander Alexander Nikulin wants to get traded. i say offer like a fifth or 6th but no more. he isnt spectacular but still he had 50 points in the ahl last year.
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i say in the offseason sign either gaborik or higgins and for defense, sign either komiserek or bowmeester. also take a shot at mike cammalari
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Islanders1984 says:
That site that will go un named is such BS. You notice how he always has isles rumors. Its because he gets a ton of hits on the site from isles fans when he puts soemthing up like that. The only good thing on that site is BD gallof and the guy who does the blues blog
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last point respect your opinion kevin. yet respectfully will say this..
we did have to overpay there was certainly other offers going through Gandler for his services.. Wang Knew in Order to atain him he had to beat those offers & he did!
so if you want to say as a Russian player he was more concerned about the Cash .. thats fine..
though remember with out him 2001 -02 never even gives one one bright playoff moment this decade!
As well he may intially have come strictly for the cash..
yet remember Carol Alt the Pretty lady/model/actor he is with was a native Long Island Girl.. and haviing a chance to sit in front of her & their family,
(section 208)
a few times i chatted small talk with her & she told me He actually really enjoyed long Island because of its Diversity especially City versus the Hamptons
“her words”.
so yashin was content here that and that salary certainly did not make him that un-happy here;)whats done is done kev.. so yea’ i’m all about getting Komisarek or Gaborik in a second agree with you 100%
The LightHouse can help facilitate all of this fingers crossed !!
I think we will be happy one way or another this summer.. just kinda a bummer that we have to wait for another hockey season to go by thats only 9 games old…
(barring a Drastic miracle of sopme kind)No matter people like me, you & others will still be here rooting for them when they do get it right!
i’m on the clock.. waiting that is!
lets go Isles… lets Go Islanders!! -
agrred huurapop… guy has the same move and appears to be in the middle of disconnecting from his team -mates his body language & effort has been sub-par this year.. so far that is.
my hope is it changes regardless of how long they keep him or when they trade him… reason as we all know..
trade value get a better pick or prospect!poor mnas yashin.. yes!
and for what its worth i admire the scrappy side of comrie… yet soft , aloof and all I’d put my money on Yashin if push came too absolute shove…Yashin by TKO …
yashin was far from agressive, yet he was a strong on his skates
lets go Isles… Lets Go Islanders -
comrie = poor mans Yashin*
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Love this site!!
love chatting with the die hards left who root for this club…
TY “CB”, & TY fellow fans!
On a lazy sunday not a bad way to kill some time!!Here’s to a brighter future for NYI Hockey!!
lets go Isles .. lets go islanders!!
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totally agree with you pride
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agreed!
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Ryan Tendrup says:
I agree with a lot of what people said.. I think everyone understands this is a rebuilding project. Most people understand that veterans are PROBABLY going to be unloaded to contending teams at the trade deadline.. But that doesn’t mean we should let these kids develop a losing mentality. I don’t think any MAJOR trades should happen. But definitely something needs to happen. Moving Comrie right now is hard, simply because he’s high priced and hasn’t produced much. So in reality he has little to no value. I think a lot of the fans are predicting us to go dead last, and that’s not really a crazy though.. But it doesn’t mean you have to only win 2 games out of 10. You still want to be competitive. We have a hard enough time attracting free agents, and who would want to come to a team finishing the season with 45 points?
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I got it!
Maybe Mike Comrie got the same thing Mike York got, a case of “what the ….”.
if I remember correctly, Mike York was a decent player when we first aquired him, and then that season when we traded him he just turned into a… well… I’m just saying
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mjlisles says:
why on earth would lombardi trade his 24 year old captain? I agree that we just need to be patient. it is very tough to see our team go down like this night in and night out but at the deadline if we have assets like weight, guerin (as long as he waives his ntc), comrie, sillinger etc. then we can build on what we already have. and add through free agency and the draft…
how about nielsen’s start??? what a nice surprise. -
I really wouldn’t worry about anyone waiving their NTC. lol
CB, any thoughts about bringing Mike Iggulden from across the sound? He’s having a pretty good start. 6G-5A-11PTS in 11 GP.
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admin says:
Ryan: I don’t think Iggulden is coming up anytime soon.
Hurrapop: Nothing personal, but I hope you noticed a trend in your posts that I had to delete.
P n P: You don’t have to re-post to fix typos. If I did that I’d be posting 20 times a day. And while you’re at it, you are welcome to start your own blog. I recommend Word Press!
Kevin: I don’t have KO as an A prospect either and have written, like you, that he’s more of a B+. I do, however, have him as an A-lister to other GMs looking to make a trade with the NYI. There’s a difference.
Brian B: The league is divided on Hedman/Tavares – who’s 1, who’s 2 – but everyone agrees they are 1-2.
As for Petrov, and same with Ness and some others, way too early to consider them A or B-listers for other teams looking to deal. No team is going to offer a stud in a deal where they would make a difference. Maybe in a year or two, but not while they’re freshmen in college or 18-years old in Russia
Glad everyone liked the new jersey. Almost certain it will be the primary soon…CB
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yeah CB i noticed what the grades meant after i looked back later but yeah then okposo would be an A
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CB or anyone else know how long Krill Petrov is locked up in Russia for. I saw a website about his team and it says 2012 next to his name. I really hope it won’t be 4 years before Isles have a shot to bring this kid over
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Non taken CB, I’ll keep it down man, keep up the great job.
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thank you for the advice CB..
Just wondering , I assume it would take much work & Help.. I mean your networking is far superior then mine.
I do love this Game & Team..
If I were too consider this??
would ask (if not imposing)
More advice on the how to make it successful.Your track record for success is
un-questionable in it’s skill & professionalism .I mean that! you seem like as they say Good people!!
So thank You, I think?
Just wonder why you think this?Plus your site is the best and always will be when it comes to Islander Blogs… your the King baby.. no offense to the Kinger !! lol
I know your a busy guy CB , especially with the full plate you must deal with both family wise this blog & other endeavors you may be active in…
so maybe one of these get togethers you throw for The Die Hards… I will try & make an appearence with the hope to pick your brain …(dont worry I will be concise knowing your time needs to be spread amongst us all)….
Not to the extent I write here… I think thats one of the reasons you offer me this advice…lol
Again I hope I’m not a burden here.. I do not wish to be.
CB Continue best of luck here your work is price-less to die -hards like me!!
“Thank You” again CB!Lets Go Isles.. Lets Go Islanders!!
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P.S
CB, do not want attention, just want this damn team to wake -up from its 15 year slumber!! lol..I do think for the First time since 2000
we are getting closer to this goal,even though these next few years maybe filled with a little more frustration..would you agree?
thanks for your time CB!
Lets go Isles!!
Totally Agree! Not gonna happen. We will prob not make any big deals until the deadline when we trade a bunch of vets for picks..