Smyth trade was a mistake

Yet again, Islanders fans are left frustrated and annoyed with good reason

Jim Baumbach

12:16 PM EDT, July 2, 2007

You can give the Islanders credit for acting boldly and aggressively at the trade deadline. They traded for the best player available in the hopes of (a) a long playoff run, and/or (b) convincing Ryan Smyth to sign a long-term contract.

But if you're going to put the future of your franchise on the line for such a move, you need to be certain that one of those things is going to happen. Of course neither did, putting yet another forgettable chapter in the Islanders history books.

Do you hear that sound in the distance? I think that's laughter coming from Alexei Yashin's Old Westbury estate.

The Islanders decision-makers must have woken up this morning in serious damage-control mode. The player they so desperately wanted to build around Smyth spurned them, big-time. He was en route to Denver this morning, around the same time the Islanders were probably scratching their heads.

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So the Islanders have nothing to show for the two prospects, Robert Nilsson and Ryan O'Marra, and the 2007 first-round selection that they sent to Edmonton for Smyth. That's a steep price to pay for what proved to be a rental player.

It's easy to rope the Yashin situation into this mess, even if everyone agrees that buying out the remainder of Yashin's anchor of a contract was the best move for the organization's future Smyth or no Smyth. Still, doing so in the middle of their exclusive negotiating period with Smyth seemed to be at least somewhat symbolic. It was as if that move was the Islanders' way of publicly handing Yashin's 'C' to Smyth.

Only Smyth didn't want it.

Of course there were signs. There always are in retrospect. There was a story in the Edmonton Journal a few days after the Islanders announced plans to buy out Yashin's contract, when Smyth appeared to essentially shrug at the gesture.

"Being a captain? Yeah, that would be nice. But I just want to win," Smyth was quoted as saying. Of course he does. He played like it with the Islanders, if only for a few months, a blip on the franchise's register. You bet the Islanders' front office knew his inspired play might just be contagious if only they could keep him, which in the end proved impossible.

You wonder if Smyth ever had any intentions of staying on Long Island. His agent, Don Meehan, has always maintained that he never ruled it out. Meehan is quoted in the Denver newspapers today saying it was one of the toughest decisions of his client's life. But agents, of course, are paid to say that.

We'll hear from Smyth soon enough, though surely he will speak endlessly about how much respect the Avalanche showed him how his buddy Joe Sakic convinced him to come on board how he just wants to win. Just guessing here, but he will probably be very little talk about the Islanders.

And that, in of itself, should speak volumes.

Looking for reaction from Smyth's working-class family, I called his family business this morning. His two brothers, Kevin and Jared, and his father, Jim, run a business together in their hometown of Red Deer, which is about an hour south of Edmonton. But the person who answered the phone said nobody from the Smyth family was expected in today.

They're all on vacation today, he said, up at the lake. They do have a lot to celebrate. Their son and their brother, the talented hockey player, has picked his new home. And it's not Long Island.