Alternate Universe: Isles were about to be owned by Dolan (1992)

[NYRfan11]

A few weeks ago, I was reading about John Pickett, who was the Isles owner during their dynasty. One of the biggest things I didn't realize was that in Aug 1992, Charles Dolan, owner of Cablevision and James' dad - had a deal in place to buy the Islanders (NY Times link).

Originally back in 1981, Charles Dolan had attempted to buy 36% of the Isles but the deal was nixed by four minority owners of the Isles who had accused Pickett of undervaluing the team. This time in '92 it seemed like it was a done deal. As part of the purchase, Bill Torrey (the architect) was forced to leave and Don Maloney (THE Don Maloney) became GM. By '92 Pickett seemed done with the team after having gone through multiple contract holdouts, most notably with Pat Lafontaine, who by the end of it said that he wouldn't play for the Isles again if Pickett was still the owner.

The rest of the story is the deal to sell to Dolan fell apart by July '93 (NY Times link), three years later Pickett sold to John Spano, the fraudster who actually had no money or business owning a team. Great 30 for 30 on that part if you haven't seen it.

I'm fascinated with "what might have beens" in NHL terms - had we gotten Lindros in '92, Sakic in '97, Bure in '99, Jagr in '01 - but what would have happened had Dolan actually bought the Isles instead of the Rangers? Would Sather have run the Isles all those years instead? Would they have spent $70MM on payroll back in '02 instead of the Rangers? Would the Rangers have been more or less successful in the years that followed?

Click to read more...

 

[Brief Candle]

I never knew this! In a way, as much as I can't stand the Dolans, I'm glad we'll never know.

 

[Jaromir Jagr]

That is pretty interesting. I'm wondering if it was mentioned in the ESPN doc that the guy from Entourage directed about Spano. Still on my list to watch.

As much as I hate Dolan, the Islanders owners up until now completely shit the bed, so I can't imagine it could have gone any worse for them. Maybe it would have gone better for us, but that's probably a coin flip.

Spano set that franchise so far back that they are just now recovering. He nearly caused the team to have to dissolve. Once they were taken over, they had to trade away basically everyone in order to avoid paying their salaries. This is what led to McCabe, Bertuzzi, Berard, Palffy, etc all being traded shortly after the next owners took over. Then, you had them sold again to Wang and Kumar (who himself ended up in prison), however, they actually began to bring some stability to the squad. Still, they had no idea what the hell hockey was (I actually recall Wang would be at games with his "Hockey for Dummies" book).

While all this was happening, you had Milbury running the team into the ground with decisions that are arguably unmatched in their level of stupidity. Trading Chara & a first that became Spezza for Yashin, then signing Yashin to 10 years. Drafting DiPietro first overall. Trading a budding Roberto Luongo.

I mean, I can't imagine in any alternative universe with a realistic owner that some of those guys who became absolute legends don't hang around. In fact, it's kind of impressive just how many top tier players the Islanders managed to trade away before they hit their potential. If I was an Isles fan I would puke in my mouth everytime I'd imagine what could have been.

 

[Baby Punisher]

That is pretty interesting. I'm wondering if it was mentioned in the ESPN doc that the guy from Entourage directed about Spano. Still on my list to watch.

As much as I hate Dolan, the Islanders owners up until now completely shit the bed, so I can't imagine it could have gone any worse for them. Maybe it would have gone better for us, but that's probably a coin flip.

Spano set that franchise so far back that they are just now recovering. He nearly caused the team to have to dissolve. Once they were taken over, they had to trade away basically everyone in order to avoid paying their salaries. This is what led to McCabe, Bertuzzi, Berard, Palffy, etc all being traded shortly after the next owners took over. Then, you had them sold again to Wang and Kumar (who himself ended up in prison), however, they actually began to bring some stability to the squad. Still, they had no idea what the hell hockey was (I actually recall Wang would be at games with his "Hockey for Dummies" book).

While all this was happening, you had Milbury running the team into the ground with decisions that are arguably unmatched in their level of stupidity. Trading Chara & a first that became Spezza for Yashin, then signing Yashin to 10 years. Drafting DiPietro first overall. Trading a budding Roberto Luongo.

I mean, I can't imagine in any alternative universe with a realistic owner that some of those guys who became absolute legends don't hang around. In fact, it's kind of impressive just how many top tier players the Islanders managed to trade away before they hit their potential. If I was an Isles fan I would puke in my mouth everytime I'd imagine what could have been.

It's amazing how the Spano disaster is still being felt today. Wang did his best to win. He probably should have brought in a better GM. Milbury was looking for quick fixes, but at the same time was gutting the franchise's prospect pool. Wang purchased the team on the notion that the Light House project would be built. Once that effort proved to be fruitless and dead Wang had to tighten the belt and there weren't any prospects in the system to ice a good team. Than the lockout of 04-05 happens and everyone gets a bit of a reset. But the Islanders were still a struggling team.

One thing about the Dolans, they were going to spend money no matter what. Looking back now I think Islander fans would have avoided a lot of heartache had the Dolan's purchased the team.

 

[Jaromir Jagr]

It's amazing how the Spano disaster is still being felt today. Wang did his best to win. He probably should have brought in a better GM. Milbury was looking for quick fixes, but at the same time was gutting the franchise's prospect pool. Wang purchased the team on the notion that the Light House project would be built. Once that effort proved to be fruitless and dead Wang had to tighten the belt and there weren't any prospects in the system to ice a good team. Than the lockout of 04-05 happens and everyone gets a bit of a reset. But the Islanders were still a struggling team.

One thing about the Dolans, they were going to spend money no matter what. Looking back now I think Islander fans would have avoided a lot of heartache had the Dolan's purchased the team.

Yea, given all that happened, I just have to imagine almost any alternative scenario would have resulted in a better outcome for them. Dolan sucks, but he has an open checkbook and we never have to worry about solvency issues. It's a real luxury, despite his occasional intervention (which I think is pretty overblown by the fanbase tbh). I'm not sure the Rangers would have succeeded better with any other owner. We've been on the cusp of winning for nearly two decades now and it's just a hard thing to do & when you look at the teams that often win, they have generational players that fell into their laps (Crosby, Ovechkin, Stamkos/Kucherov, Kane, etc). He's an insufferable human, so there's that element, but overall I'm pretty fine with how the team operates.

Wang was an owner who cared. The issue was he really knew nothing about hockey when he started and probably wasn't able to decipher the fact that Milbury was a f***ing fool. I don't blame him for the errors the franchise made at the beginning of his tenure and he did help them to get on their feet to the point where they are today.

It was a real tragedy of consecutive errors for the Islanders and it's just completely sunk their franchise. Growing up in the late 90's & 00's, I consider them our biggest rival, but to this day have no memory of a playoff series or anything like the heights of the 70's / 80's. As much as I love to see them fail, it's kind of a shame.