mike milbury takes his complaints straight to the press

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kobayashi

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there are several reports today of an impromptu video presentation given yesterday by ny islanders GM mike milbury.
the toronto sun

cbs sportsline

these 2 stories all depict generally the same scene: milbury in the isles dressing room with reporters and video equipment. milbury was offering commentary on a video that was running showing various refereering infractions which added to the fortunes of both the maple leafs and the isles, but a little more for the leafs. he expands on his idea to explain how there may be a push amongst the refs to help the leafs along in the playoffs.

first off, though the officiating was certainly not perfect, i find it hard to discern how milbury sees such a pro-toronto slant to the game. yes the isles did recieve a few more calls, but they were also playing a much more aggressive game. the isles have outhit the leafs only be several checks, however the islander checking has been of a much higher quality. whether it is right or not, when you play such a game you are likely to incur more penalties. in my experience, such has always been the case.

milbury has always played to the media, made a large scene whether it be from his mouth or via numerous blockbuster trades that he made which continued to drive the club into the ground, (that is until Computer Associates ownership arrived with money in tow). as such, his accusations of a pro-toronto slant are not surprising. he is grabbing the media's attention. he did the same thing when he was blowing the incident between scatchard and corson at the end of game 1 way out of proportion.

in short milbury comes off looking like a guy who knows that his team is in trouble and is now using whatever means he can, in a desperate grab for life, to stave off elimination. if he were smart he would realize his exuberant, young team is heading home to a playoff starving crowd. he would realize that the isles aren't that far off being up 2 games to none themselves as in reality they have had overall better play than the leafs. what the isles organization should be doing, evne coach laviolette who got into the media fun after game 1, is focusing on helping the playoff inexperienced isles to understand they need to execute late in their games. as it is the leafs have scored all 5 of their goals in the last 15 minutes of each of the first two games.



[This message has been edited by kobayashi (edited 04-22-2002).]
 
hes just venting to release his anger from the non-production of yashin.

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-deathbear
 
could i have written that any worse??

what i mean is yashin has been sucking, and mils is anxious.

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-deathbear
 
ummm, I think if you really look at what Milbury was trying to do, he just wanted to deflect attention away from the teams inabilty to score goals. Toronto was crying about officiating before the series had even started. Oh, and Milbury is no hack, he did an admirable job holding the organization together during some rough times. He deserve a heck of a lot of credit for what he's done.

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Don't let the bastards grind you down.

Zooropa FTP
 
Originally posted by Zooropa:
ummm, I think if you really look at what Milbury was trying to do, he just wanted to deflect attention away from the teams inabilty to score goals

i think that is what i said-->in short milbury comes off looking like a guy who knows that his team is in trouble and is now using whatever means he can, in a desperate grab for life, to stave off elimination

as far as his credit being due. he has certainly always been willing to pull the trigger on a blockbuster whether in times of affluence or not. but until the money arrived the team was simply not competitive. a much better example of poor team management would be the edmonton oilers who made the playoffs 4 or 5 straight years until this season, when it seems everyone got better.
milbury was wise to pick up peca. he is a great player in the fashion of steve yzerman and i look forward to watching him become one of the games superstars over the next few years. hamrlik was also a good pickup. the mistake lies in the aquistion of alexei yashin. in spite of his 75 regular season points long island is now beginning to realize what ottawa did-->yashin is simply not a playoff performer.
maybe that will all change tonight, we'll have to wait and see. as i alluded to in my original post, i don't think the isles have to display this much public concern. if you look at it positively they still have a lot going for them.
 
Originally posted by kobayashi:
milbury has always played to the media, made a large scene whether it be from his mouth or via numerous blockbuster trades that he made which continued to drive the club into the ground, (that is until Computer Associates ownership arrived with money in tow).


You know what it is, It just bugs me when I hear things like this about Milbury. I'm so sick of defending him when he wasn't the problem, it was ownership (if it can even be called that) that drove the team into the ground. Now that Milbury has some money behind him, he's doing fine and the Islanders will continue to be sucessful. I agree to an extend with what you said about focusing on the task at hand and by no means do I see this series as being over, It will go at least 6 and hopefully with a little luck the Isles will win, BUT the officiating has been horrible, and the points he made about McCabe were dead on. If you notice though, Milbury also went into detail about penalties that were not called on the Isles as well, not just Toronto. Before the playoffs started, The NHL stated that games will be called the same way as they were in the regular season, and that hasn't been the case. Playoff hockey is rough, and the refs should let the boys play, but some of the calls they aren't making are affecting the game.

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Don't let the bastards grind you down.

Zooropa FTP

[This message has been edited by Zooropa (edited 04-23-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Zooropa (edited 04-23-2002).]
 
Originally posted by Zooropa:
You know what it is, It just bugs me when I hear things like this about Milbury. I'm so sick of defending him when he wasn't the problem, it was ownership (if it can even be called that) that drove the team into the ground. Now that Milbury has some money behind him, he's doing fine and the Islanders will continue to be sucessful. I agree to an extend with what you said about focusing on the task at hand and by no means do I see this series as being over, It will go at least 6 and hopefully with a little luck the Isles will win, BUT the officiating has been horrible, and the points he made about McCabe were dead on. If you notice though, Milbury also went into detail about penalties that were not called on the Isles as well, not just Toronto. Before the playoffs started, The NHL stated that games will be called the same way as they were in the regular season, and that hasn't been the case. Playoff hockey is rough, and the refs should let the boys play, but some of the calls they aren't making are affecting the game.


i'm going to have to disagree with you that the aquisition of yashin is a good move by milbury. yashin will fill seats in the nassau coliseum, and hopefully the new building, but he is not going to win any playoff series. for my money he stands a good chance to not be a factor in any playoff series. corson is a great player who is doing the same excellent checking job he did last year, but there are several other guys who could do the same job he is doing on other teams.

i would classify peca, aucoin and hamrlik all as great moves. peca is well on his way to being one of the games stars in the same fashion as yzerman. they still need one top level defenceman before they will contend at the top though.

milbury has done a brilliant job in isolating the 'can opener' as a major threat to the nhl. the fact is this play is employed by many players around the nhl, it is not at all limited to mccabe. this very same move was employed by a san jose shark in bringing down mogilny a few months back, resulting in alex being gone for a few weeks. quinn even complained about it then. yes it should be called but mccabe doesn't do it any more or any less than any other defencemen. milbury isolating mccabe for its use because he is 'slow' is comical.

tonight should be a great game
smile.gif
let's hope the pro-toronto influence of the nhl doesn't stretch to new york!

[This message has been edited by kobayashi (edited 04-23-2002).]
 
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