Islanders, Coliseum can't attract star players

1983 NOW, 1983 FOREVER! It has been a quarter century since your last cup and I predict it will be longer than 54 years since your next one. Ah, Karma is a beautiful thing. To add insult to injury, the NY Rangers {In the SALARY CAP NHL} have built one of the strongest Farm systems in the NHL and will be a force for the next decade. Life is good.

"This comes in the face of a phenomenal week for the Rangers: They made a steal in the draft with highly rated forward Alexei Cherepanov, Mark Messier was elected to the Hall of Fame, their 1994 Cup was named as the greatest sports moment in the past 20 years in a WFAN poll and Gomez and Drury signed on"

I like that paragraph

HAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAA

MESSIER, HE IS AN OILER.

IF RYAN SMYTH WAS A RANGER FOR 25 GAMES, YOU WOULD BE TALKING ABOUT INDUCTING HIM AS A RAG TOO.
WAS GRETZKY DEFINED BY HIS TIME AT RAG TOWN?

GO PAY 50 MILLION FOR GOMEZ. HAAAA.. hAAAAAAAAAAA

GOMEZ SCORED 16 GOALS ONCE!!!

Would I take him as an Isle, yes.
The Rags pay $10,000 for a plastic toilet seat because someone else offered $50.

Go take a Drury dump.
He's over rated.

What do LI and the barn have to do with incompetent team management?

Teams and players gladly cash checks in lots of less desirable locales.

It sure is good to know that the chant "1983" is painful to the Icelander fans as evidenced by "ALSO."

I can't wait for the hockey season to begin. The rangers are going to be a fun competitive team to watch. Their is a Salary cap so doucheboy asslander whining fans can't cry about the Rangers spending more than everyone.

To top it off, the Icelanders gave up their top two prospects and #1 pick in 2007 and HAVE NOTHING TO SHOW for it.

It will be fun to see the Icelanders in last place. It will be hilarious to see them try and replace the 114 goals that left their team.

The ONLY player on that team with grit and heart that I was worried about was Jason Blake. Glad to see that he left that sinking ship. He deserved better and now he will get it.

1983 NOW, 1983 FOREVER! ROTFLMFAO!!!

You writers are about as bright as a 1 volt bulb. IT IS JULY. When you pass your money over the counter to buy something do you write down that you were jipped before the cashier hands you your goods???- Rangers are no better for starters. Nylander and Shanahan? gone - haven't even signed your goalie - Avery? put you in playoffs. Shanny and Nylander = Drury and Gomez. As for the Isles we will build a team this offseason that will be very competitive. It has nothing to do with our historic and classic arena.

Throw a retirement party for Gomez and Drury because they just did what many, many overpaid "stars" have done over the years by going to the Strangers - they just retired.(Gretzky, Esposito, LaFleur, Barry Beck?)

Strangers fans, but you just gave $7 million to Gomez, a guy who in a 7 year career has averaged 16 - SIXTEEN - goals a year and will not mesh with Jagr. Drury's "heart" and "grit" also got him $7 million. ALSO OVERPAID and OVERRATED.

As for Smyth - hockey's Mike Hampton (so how are those Colorado schools?)- his "leadership" is vastly overrated. Lots of years and lots of miles on those tires, and didn't show me much offensive skill and skating ability, both of which are more important in today's NHL. Isles never should've traded for him, even if they did give up questionable prospects.

Last July we were also slated to end up 15th in the conference and were a joke but we did ok and we will do even better this year. It is writers like Hermie here that make me love my Isles even more. It is actually quite fun being an Islander fan - I will always bleed the Blue, white and Orange. We have the best 1-2 tandem in the NHL and I have faith in Snow, Nolan and company that we will spend the 50 million this year - in other words we still have 20 million left to spend - What do the Rangers have left???

Jim from Woodbury wrote:

"This comes in the face of a phenomenal week for the Rangers: They made a steal in the draft with highly rated forward Alexei Cherepanov, Mark Messier was elected to the Hall of Fame, their 1994 Cup was named as the greatest sports moment in the past 20 years in a WFAN poll and Gomez and Drury signed on"
I like that paragraph

Named the greatest sport moment by New York Ranger fans I am sure.

"we still have 20 million left to spend"

Yeah, but when there's nobody to spend it on, what's the point?

What, the Isles are going to give everybody raises with all this extra cash?

Any Islander fan trying to downplay the events of the other night are in fact dillusional.

6 of our top 10 players, ARE GONE!

What are we going to get? Amonte, Lindros, Carter, Peca? Pllllleeeeeeaaaassssseeeee!

Right now this is our top four lines:

Hilbert-Silly-Hunter
Satan-Nokie-Tambs
Bergie-Bates-Sim
Park-Colliton-Nielsen

To quote Jim Mora, "Playoffs?!?!?".

The salary cap is going up, it's called the market fellas, not overpaying. Briere got 6.6, Blake got 5, hell even Hamrlik got 5!

If any of you fellow Islander fans say that you wouldn't have been thrilled to get Gomez and Drury for the price the Rangers did, you are full of sh*t.

Oh , and another thing. ENOUGH with the 1940 stuff, it's embarrassing. Let's worry about ourselves and our problems, Lord knows we have enough of them.

The Rangers had a solid team before Sunday, they added two guys I think are great guys and excellent hockey players, that's the facts.

We need to change something. The building, the FO mentality, something. Feeling bad for ourselves and trying to rip Rangers fans because they "overpaid" won't mean crap when our team is sitting at home watching the Rangers win the Cup, which while it hurts to type, is a VERY real possibility.

I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY BS ABOUT THE PROBLEMS WITH THE NASSAU COLISEUM...THIS IS TOTAL CRAP.....WOULD I WANT TO PLAY IN A BRAND NEW ARENA....SURE....BUT WHEN THE COLISEUM IS PACKED AND THE FANS ARE INTO IT (like the playoffs) IT'S A FANTASTIC PLACE....THE PROBLEM IS THE PLACE IS USUALLY 65% FULL...END OF STORY...DON'T INSULT OUR INTELLIGENCE... As a long time Islander Fan all I want to hear is the truth...Are we dumping salary...WHAT IS THE REAL GAME PLAN HERE....WE HAVE WANG AND RECHLER WITH TONS OF DO-RE.....WE HAVE A FANTASTIC BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO LIVE....WE WILL HAVE A NEW BUILDING....ALL WE NEED IS A GREAT PRODUCT ON THE ICE.....Why didn't we give SMYTH an offer he could not have turned down if they wanted him so bad...??????? ONE GREAT THING FOR ALL ISLANDER FANS TO REMEMBER.....YASHIN IS GONE !!!!!!! THAT'S A HOME RUN FOR US......

I'm sorry, but this is a load of crap. This is the lamest excuse I have EVER heard from a GM who just got schooled when playing with the big boys.

The fact that Newsday runs with this stuff only adds to the disrespect. It's not the building that the fans and players are sick of. It is the shenanagans and the BS that emulates from the organization and the newspaper that attempts to lend it credibility.

Nostradamus wrote:

Throw a retirement party for Gomez and Drury because they just did what many, many overpaid "stars" have done over the years by going to the Strangers - they just retired.(Gretzky, Esposito, LaFleur, Barry Beck?)
Strangers fans, but you just gave $7 million to Gomez, a guy who in a 7 year career has averaged 16 - SIXTEEN - goals a year and will not mesh with Jagr. Drury's "heart" and "grit" also got him $7 million. ALSO OVERPAID and OVERRATED.
As for Smyth - hockey's Mike Hampton (so how are those Colorado schools?)- his "leadership" is vastly overrated. Lots of years and lots of miles on those tires, and didn't show me much offensive skill and skating ability, both of which are more important in today's NHL. Isles never should've traded for him, even if they did give up questionable prospects.

First off, you look foolish trying to say Gomez and Drury are bad signings. You would be doing cartwheels if the Isles signed them, and you know it.

Second, yes they were overpaid. Show me a UFA so far who was not overpaid. They're ALWAYS overpaid.

Third, as a NYR fan, I do feel badly for Isles fans. This is not how a GM runs things. I think Snow's inexperience showed during this whole process. And then balming the building? That is really an insult to your fan base. There is something else going on here. Something bad. There has to be. They had no trouble signing those guys to come here before. The building did not prevent Poti, Hill, Witt, DiPietro, etc from signing here before.

Push for the real answers. Don't drink the Kool-Aid they're feeding you today...

"Mark Messier was elected to the Hall of Fame, their 1994 Cup was named as the greatest sports moment in the past 20 years in a WFAN poll"

You must be kidding, right? Like these 2 things actually mean dick to anyone. LOL.

Cincy wrote:

"Mark Messier was elected to the Hall of Fame, their 1994 Cup was named as the greatest sports moment in the past 20 years in a WFAN poll"
You must be kidding, right? Like these 2 things actually mean dick to anyone. LOL.

Agreed. In the old NHL, the Rangers had the resources and the platform to compete for the SC EVERY YEAR....period. The fact that it took them 54 years is still a joke.
Although so far this off-season sucks for Isles fans...it is only 7/3. Lets wait for opening night to make judgements on the Isles AND the Rangers. A LOT can change between now and then. And who says NOT OVER-PAYING OVERATED players is a bad idea.(see Yashin).

Dear Mr. Wang,
Please hire a hockey man and let him run your franchise. There are rumblings that you are more interested in the land around the arena than the ice inside the arena. Perhaps it is time to put the franchise up for sale so you can focus on your other real estate ventures.