COULD HAVE BEEN A LOT WORSE
Oilers did not maximize Ryan Smyth deal
In dealing Ryan Smyth and sliding the rest of the 2006-07 season into hockey hell - including the overshadowing of their Mark Messier Night - the Oilers received the following package from the Islanders:
- A first round pick in 2007 (15th overall) which Edmonton reached with to take stay-at-home defenseman Alex Plante, who projects as a No. 5 defenseman at best.
- Former Islanders prospect (and recent first-rounder) Ryan O’Marra, who played half of last season in the East Coast Hockey League and this year is a stunning 0-3-3 in 23 games with Springfield (AHL).
- Robert Nilsson, who after cashing in with a three-year, $5-5 million contract, has reverted to the player-on-the-periphery Pierre Maguire and others had him pegged. Last night he was benched by coach Craig MacTavish for “non-competition - he had no competition. I’ve had enough of that and seen enough.”
Of course, the Islanders wish they had that first round draft pick back. Maybe they would have taken Colton Gillies (who went 16th) or Angelo Esposito (20). But that was the price they had to pay to get Ryan Smyth and try to make a run. (Remember Brian Burke complaining that he would have given up more to Edmonton?)
Garth Snow was called the “GM of the Year” by Sports Illustrated for the trade and he says he doesn’t regret the move and never will. I can understand that.
But it’s a good thing the Oilers didn’t burn him. In addition to craving the credibility of Smyth and Ted Nolan having zero use for Nilsson, maybe Snow knew which draft picks from the old regime to move before it was too late.
And yes, the new Islanders scouting staff is going to have to do a lot better than taking Robert Nilsson (2003) and Ryan O’Marra (2005) in the first round.
Comments.
45 Responses to “COULD HAVE BEEN A LOT WORSE
Oilers did not maximize Ryan Smyth deal”
Please Wait
Garth Snow “GM of the Year”. Sports Illustrated should shut their doors out of sheer embarrassment.
Hi Chris
Its sort of around the time when we can start to evaluate some of the trades of the past….and for a short while, I thought Nilsson was resurging and could burn us - but seems as if this trade is almost a wash for us………but as you point out - we are lucky.
This is the type of trade you make to go from a second round team to have a shot to be a finalist ( see the Hossa deal last year) - as opposed to making a trade to get waxed in the first round.
In the NHL, can you do a “sign and trade” type of deal - where right before such a trade is made - the prior team signs him to a deal then trades him to another ?
I wish Smyth had stayed here in many ways, but I suppose going forward - that we avoid these ( Smyth, Muller) type of deals unless its a CERTAINTY to get us into the finals sort of trade.
Pat
Compared to where we are now I am very happy the isles made the smyth trade. It does give us some hope that garth may know talent in that he also trade nokie for something ( not walter but a second rounder this year i believe) These are the dog days..i even get my balls busted at the local diner for wearing the isles cap…oh well…let’s go jets! yes i am a masochist..lol
Seriously? Snow was the GM of the year? How did he get that title? I don’t think he did a good job at all, I think he created a mess, but we all have are own ways of looking at things and maybe now I should go cancel my subscription to SI.. just kidding)
Snow was GREAT in that trade. I do the Smyth trade every day of the year…..Snow was also lousy in getting Smyth signed and losing Yashin’s scoring, building a roster, drafting and so on……
But that trade is his legacy. He was solid on that one. Just like Maloney was solid in his drafting. Like Milbury was in building the 2001 roster and hiring Lavy.
A broken clock is right twice a day (once in this digital age).
Even though it didn’t work out, I am still happy that they made that deal. They didn’t give up much apparently. That deal also made a statement that if we are close to contending under Wang/Snow they will go ahead and make a move to bolster our chances. Most people seem to forget that it wasn’t a trade designed to get us into the playoffs. At the time we were in like 6th place, within striking distance of 4th. If DP hadn’t gotten hurt we very well could have finished higher. That team was certainly good enough to beat the Thrasher team who the Rags were lucky enough to draw.
Are they drinking the COOL-AID !!!
Thank you, chris. I am so tired of reading the “OMG OMG THREE 1st ROUNDER” thing when it comes to that trade. IMO you need to give up where someone was drafted and look at who they ARE. And when you look at who those guys ARE instead of when they were picked, the risk of that trade becomes a LOT less risky. Its not the big deal people make it out to be, there was no big loss, and even though it didnt work out the way Garth wanted, it was IMO totally worth it to try.
Just like our draft picks, we will not know how good a GM Snow is for another few years. I thought that the Smyth trade was absolutely the right thing to do at that time, and I still do. At that point, the Isles had a legit shot at home ice in the first round, and he had the guts to make a move to try to put us over the top. It’s not his fault that DP went down and Dunham dropped the ball in March. Since then, he’s done the best he can with what he has (our reputation around the league included).
CB
the real crux of the problem here is the islanders drafting. O’Marra, Nilsson, etc were highly touted selections. All this while passing on guys like Parise.
When is someone going to call attention to that??
uh, I think I did in the final paragraph in the story above and in about a dozen other articles in the last three months…CB
great trade. i remember when it happened. there was so much buzz and everyone was saying we were going all the way. too bad DP got hurt and toronto screwed us with the goals.
When do the Oilers maximize on a trade?
I thought we threw in a Russian kid too. But I could be wrong. Hey… he tried. It took guts.
I hope Snow learned from this… the only way to do a trade like this is they are signed FIRST before the deal is done.
With all the hype for Tavares/Hedman being the key to a successful rebuild, this article is the perfect example that either of them could be flops like O’Mara/Nielsen. As always great article CB
thanks, Mike. But there is a major difference. O’Marra and Nilsson were always middle-of-the-pack guys. Ask any team in the league and they’ll tell you Tavares and Hedman are in a class of their own. I’ll have more on that subject later in the week…CB
ISLEOFNJ - please provide the precedent for that move in the NHL? Let alone a deal that was finalized about 10 minutes before the bell rang.
Nice argument in theory from the complainer stand point, but in reality, it’s rare.
The PHI ’sign and trade’ moves were conducted in the offseason, not during the regular season.
CB…
Just a quick question. Since you’ve worked behind the scenes, just how much freedom does a GM (not just Garth Snow) actually have when pulling trades and signing free agents? And how much freedom does Garth have compared to other GMs?
Doesn’t look like the scouting has gotten much better since then? Okposo,Bailey,Bergenhiem,Gervais the list goes on and on they all look way OVERMATCHED in this league.
Chris, any chance of Michael Haley being signed to an NHL 2-way deal?
mike
Okposo,Bailey are 19 & 20!
u r being a little harsh
Joe, that would be great if they can sign HALEY, if any one can spark the player’s and fans its HALEY. He can even put pucks in the net. He can wake up the skating dead of this team….He can drop Fritz..
Howatt, thats a bit of an overreaction, hes a solid MW than can skate and score, a better version of Nate Thompson. I think hed be a good replacement for Sim or when Thompson is sidelined.
Mike, I do agree about Bailey, besides a few moves hes looked very uneasy out there. Also, Ive never been a big fan of the play of Gervais, we’ll see about KO soon. I totally disagree about Bergenheim. With a team like this, its easy to look uneasy.
I’ve seen him fight in juniors and he dropped the so called Heavy-weights. He would drop Nate ‘glass jaw’ Thompson in a heart beat. He fights like Tie Domi and Domi beat Bob Probert…
I don’t know what some of you are looking at, but I have been very happy and excited about Bailey and Okposo. Although the points are not there yet, Okposo is playing extremly well for 20 years old and almost 30 games into his career. Recently Bailey does look a little overmatched but I think it is just him beeing a rookie.
Considering the Isles’ and their management’s track record over the last 15 years, it’s hard for me to simply blame Bailey, Okposo, and others’ lack of success this year on their being young and inexperienced. Look around the NHL- there are PLENTY of young guys making immediate impacts for their teams. It’s one of the most exciting aspects of the NHL these days, all of the young talent.
I don’t expect 25 goals for a rookie, but c’mon, 0 goals through 19 games for Bailey? 2 for Okposo? 0 for Tambellini? That’s worrisome, and Islanders history over the last 15 years gives me no reason to be optimistic.
Well, with Tamby, I think at this point is all over. Trade the guy, get him somewhere that maybe he’ll produce, hes useless here.
Chris, great article, I remember getting Tix against the CAPS at the Verizon center and my kids had a first glimpse at Captain Canada. There were a ton of Isle fans and Ryan scored his first goal as an Isle, there was definitely excitment in the air. Snow did the right thing, the fans displayed so much passion. It was nice to be a legitimate contender again. I hope the ISLEs do not pass on guys they feel are not a good fit for the system that Gordon employs. That could be problematic and lead to making poor draft choices in the future. I think Witt had a great point last week.
Yeah,let’s give up on KO and Bailey IMMEDIATELY. They’re obviously not gonna cut it in the NHL. More trigger happy GM’ing from an impatient fan base.
I guess the other question is, Did the Avalanche overpay for Ryan? His production over the last two years are on the decline, understanding that Ryan was injured last season, the Avalance are not exactly running away with their division.
Blitz
In response to a “precedence” concern for such a transaction, there is an inevitable “first time” for everything.
The DP deal was a “first”… maybe even too long in some peoples opinion. However, after that deal there were several other long term deals that popped up (in PHI) for example. Not of the 15 year variety.
It just ended up being alot to give up for a rental….
There’s really no way for us to know “on the outside” that this deal was only completely done in the last 10 minutes.
The Smyth trade was absolutely the right move at the time. That team had to back their way into the playoffs because DiPietro got hurt and the Simon incident took everyone off their game, but if they managed to get on a roll instead, we’d have gotten the 6th seed or higher and had a chance to get on a run against a weaker opponent before having to face a top contender like Buffalo. The idea that we “made a deadline deal to get waxed in the first round” ignores everything else that happened after the trade that hurt our season.
Milbury and his scouts were clearly overmatched when it came to making mid-round picks. As Chris says, the team is going to need to do a lot better to succeed at the rebuild.
1. No problem with that trade….none of those players are hurting us now…..and Smyth is wasting someone else’s 6 million for the next 5 years.
2. Have no problem with the young future we are trying to build….BIG PROBLEM THAT THE FRANCHISE STILL DOES NOT KNOW IF THEY WILL HAVE A NEW BUILDING…..which IMO is the most pressing issue.
Remember Bailey is playing with that whole ankle thingy too. I think after he got the nod to stay his game slipped a little, but I liked his play the other night in Nashville.
As for the trading of draft picks, well, I was a big fan of Nilsson and really wanted him to stay here. He possesses such a high level of skill, if only his head would catch up to it, he could be a very good player in this league. With O’Marra, he was considered a top 10 pick and kept dropping for some reason. He was the “safe” pick. Well, look at that draft and short of Sid the Kid, it’s a pretty weak class. Kopitar, Marc Staal and Paul Stastny have been really the only studs to come out of the draft. I wonder if Stastny was on our radar too, he went to the Avs two picks higher than where we were in the second round.
Then the 1st rounder we dealt to Edmonton, go look at that draft and tell me what you think of it? It sucks. Could’ve been worse, we could’ve kept the pick and drafted Cherepanov. I think we all would’ve taken Smyth for a handful of games instead of a deceased prospect. So as this blog entry says, “Could Have Been a LOT Worse”
Snow was GM of the year that year no doubt. Look at the moves he made. Finding some to take Zhitnik’s crappy contract? Check. Getting someone to rid us of the god awful Mike York? Check. Improving an anemic PP? Check. Say what you will about MAB, but he was a big reason we got to the postseason that year. He helped the PP big time. I still think he was an unfair scapegoat last year and could’ve been a valuable part of the team. Look at what he’s doing this year in Minny. But I digress. Landing the biggest name on the market on deadline day that year? Check.
That year could’ve been a very interesting playoff run if not for Ricky getting hurt and Nolan’s insistance on playing Dunham, who all of the sudden forgot how to stop a puck like Goldberg in the beginning of the Mighty Ducks.
Snow looked good again on draft day this year, it will take a few years to see how it all pans out. But right now, there isn’t much to be upset about in the regards to stockpiling prospects.
It’s very early and I’m only sayin… if Okposo turns into a bust, don’t look at the guy who went right after him in his draft named Peter Mueller, who’s having himself a nice little career at the moment.
Clearly we all have our views on whether or not Snow is a good GM, and it’s true sometimes we all take chances an sometimes they don’t work out, I’ll give that to him, but for the most part I don’t think he’s really the right person for such a job, but again that’s just my opinion.
Hmmm, the Islanders suck and the Jets suck while the Bruins and the Pats are kicking ass…tough time to be blue collar NY fan
nyi really didn’t give up much for smyth. o’marra isn’t an nhl player and nilsson is a 3rd liner with an attitude problem. it remains to be seen what esposito amounts to, whom i believe the isles would have chosen with that pick. the going rate for a player like smyth was a lot higher than that at the time of the trade. i believe that nyi made big changes to their scouting department once snow came on board so a lot of the scouts that chose nilssen and o’marra might not even be here now. passing on parise was really unforgivable. jankowski seems to be doing good job.
I think the main complaint isn’t that Snow dumped Nilsson and O’Marra. The complaint is that in choosing to dump them for a rental, the team didn’t get any pieces back that would help build for the future. Either of them could have brought back prospects that might be shining now on a rebuilding team, a couple of seasons later.
Even so, Snow made the right move in context. The team had a ton of energy, and winning just one playoff series then would still be paying dividends now in terms of attendance and media respect.
I think Milbury and his team were the only ones in that room who didn’t think it was a given they would draft Parise. I remember they had shots of Parise as the Islanders were coming to the table, and I was ready for it too….After the pick was announced, my girlfriend called (it was her birthday and I was watching the draft instead of spending time with her). I answered the phone with “ROBERT NILSSON?! WHYYYYYYYYYYYY????” I was in the doghouse for a long time for that one….
We all know that was a terrible move, however, as I’ve said before, what’s done is done. At least the Islanders were able to make a bid on a great player like Smyth without taking anyone off the NHL roster or sacrificing any future pieces. I will always defend that trade because it was the right move at the time, just like changing course after it went up in flames was the right move.
Let’s remember, Edmonton originally wanted Okposo to be part of the package.
And (sorry) I meant drafting Nilsson was a terrible move. I’m fully on board with the Smyth trade, I was then and I am now.
Tuxtax? you’re not kidding when you said it’s a tough time to be a NY fan, not only am I an Islander fan but I’m a Met fan as well, and need I say more about the past two years they’ve had.
I don’t know what to make of the Islanders and the future of this team anymore, I’m just hoping we make some moves in the trade/draft that’ll help us make the next few season better and bring brighter years ahead.
Honestly, there’s only a couple of trades Snow has made that I haven’t been happy with:
(1) Trading Alexei Zhitnik to Philadelphia for [someone]. It was either Freddy Meyer or Randy Robitaille. Fine, fair, whatever. But Philly somehow parlayed that into a straight-up trade for Braydon Coburn. Which says to me Snow could’ve traded Zhitnik straight up for Coburn.
(2) Trading a 2nd round pick for Richard Zednik. The price seemed high at the time, and it still seems high.
**
The Smyth trade? I’d do it again and again and again… Now if the Isles weren’t so headstrong a few years earlier and had actually drafted Parise instead of Nilsson? Then, we’d have a different story…
it was a great trade. Smyth is just another player in Colorado. he would have been to the Isles what he was to the Oilers. besides how great is it that Snow jettisoned Milbury’s nilsson schmilsson blunder.
Snow has been a decent GM so far. A step up from Milbury, everyone gots to agree about that.
Well, 2009 Draft is looking good boys. If Snowman gets us Hedman (and Kovalchuk :-)) I’ll drink that kool aid… I’m just saying
Well, as said before….Okposo has only 2 goals, Bailey none and Bergy is looking more and more like Steve Webb (which I’ll take - I like anything Bergy gives us with his brawn). We draft spottily, too often picking the lesser guy and missing the gem one or two spots behind us. Fine. But the deal is this:
We are not getting anything out of the guys we picked compared to what another team would. I dare say Bailey on another team with Okposo and Bergenheim on his line produces far more than the three on a line in NY. Coaching? Yes. Grooming? Definitely. Just spotty development and utilization, I’d say.
Unless you can tell me it’s the clubhouse demeanor? Long Island influencing them? Discontent with the franchise (I highly doubt)?
We just do an awful job bringing our prospects along. I wish I knew why. Maybe we could have left Okposo in college with qualified people, Bailey in juniors with qualified people and been rewarded by not touching them at all until someone better finished with them?
I mean seriously, which touted Islander prospects have gone through our system and been differencemakers instead of disappointments?