Mike Milbury: Top Ten Career Moments

In recent days, hockey analyst Mike Milbury has been making the news more for his comments than his analyzing, however this isn’t his first time he’s found himself in the crossfire of public opinion.  The overall opinion on my Twitter timeline is: he shouldn’t be employed and we should stop talking about him.  But seeing as he brings in viewers to see what he will say next, the job offers keep rolling in.

Milbury has his hand in multiple broadcasts including NHL on NBC, NESN, and CBC.  Prior to this, Milbury was a defensemen, an assistant GM, a GM, and a head coach.  All this time in the public eye has given us plenty pearls from the mind of Milbury.  So with that I present to you, the top ten moments in Mike Milbury’s career:

1.) In December of 1995, Milbury was named GM of the New York Islanders and stayed in that position until 2006.  It has been 6 years since Milbury has been a GM for them, but they are still paying off one of his deals from 2001-2002.  Alexei Yashin’s 10-year, $90 million contract proved to be well overblown when he suffered an injury in 2003 and was no longer playing at the same caliber.  The organization bought out his contract in 2007, but will continue to pay for this deal until 2015 when the buy out is paid off.

2.) When Milbury gave up developing Roberto Luongo (who despite his flaws, is a Vezina contender) in 2000 and traded him to the Florida Panthers, Milbury drafted Rick DiPietro.  Fast forward to 2006, never one to learn from his mistakes, Milbury repeated the same blockbuster deal, just months before Yashin was bought out.  Milbury signed DiPietro 15 years, $67.5 million.  In that time, DiPietro could have played in 492 games; he only managed 235 games.  There’s still 9 more seasons left on that contract.

3.) I could continue talking about Milbury’s mistakes when it comes to signings and trades, but there’s so much more to talk about in Milbury’s career.  Let’s skip to 2011 when he was a commentator during the Stanley Cup Finals.  Milbury’s puzzling insult on the Sedins, “By all means, stay on Thelma and Louise, I mean Henrik and Daniel,” sparked some comments. First off, if you’re going to insult the Sedins, could you make it logical?  Thelma and Louise were not twins or even sisters, so it makes no sense.  If you really must, why not go for the Grady Girls from The Shining?

The twins from The Matrix Reloaded?

Or maybe he got Thelma and Louise confused with Patty and Selma from The Simpsons?

I don’t know but this was just a weird moment.  And from what I read in the Toronto Sun, Henrik learned about it from his kid son.  Way to go Milbury.

4.) Mike Milbury has blog (?) on the CBC website and well this is what he said on it, “Alexander Ovechkin and his sidekick Alex Semin killed their coach.”  Wow, “killed” seems a bit strong, no?  I know you’re trying to get readers, but I have a thing about proclaiming people dead when their not.  Like using the “my grandma died” excuse creeps me out and I’m so afraid of karma.  Did Ovechkin and Semin have a hand in the departure of Bruce Boudreau?  Maybe, but just because everyone is thinking it doesn’t mean you need to say it, Milbury.

5.) Let’s time travel to 1979.  You know the date.  It was the game that lead to higher glass behind the penalty box.  Mike Milbury and the Boston Bruins helped push the game of hockey to a level of ridiculousness that might have inspired Meta World Peace, or Ron Artest (what are we calling him these days?).  While Milbury was not the only member of the fight with the crowd, he is most notable for beating a fan with a shoe. 

Didn’t your momma ever teach you to keep your hands to yourself?  You’re a professional hockey player, not an extra in Slapshot!

6.) Clearly Milbury isn’t good at learning from past mistakes, because as we all know what happened this December.  Milbury was accused of assault and battery, threatening to commit a crime, and disorderly conduct all against a 12 year old in his son’s hockey league.  You’d think a man capable beating someone in the crowd would be a little understanding when things got rough out on the ice, but apparently not.

7.) More recently, as in just days ago.  Milbury has woken up to the fact that Sidney Crosby is a grinder who gets into the corners.  Things happen in those corners, questionable moments occur.  Why would Crosby keep his game clean if no one else is?  Yeah Crosby turns around to the officials on the ice looking for a call in his favor, but there are enough players in the NHL that do the same that you can’t blame a guy for trying.  So calling out Crosby on playing the game like every grinder does is silly.  Haven’t you been watching what he’s been doing these past few seasons?  It is dangerous for him to play like this with his concussions but that’s what he does.

8.) Also in that outburst was his comments towards Dan Bylsma, “And I thought Dan Bylsma should have taken off his skirt and gone over there”.  Feminists on my timeline went crazy.  I guess they weren’t so much feminists as they are equalists.  But either way, the attack on Bylsma’s manliness was an unnecessary comment.  Not everyone is as hot headed and uncontrollable as Milbury is, it’s nice to see some restraint being had when the fights broke out.

9.) Lost in the shuffle of that outburst, was comments Milbury made a few hours earlier when it came to Pat LaFontaine:

"Pat ran for the hills. Pat ran for cover,” said Milbury, now an NHL analyst for NBC. “It was cowardly, and it was terrible. And if Charles was [ticked], I wouldn’t blame him in the least."

Look, I know the Islanders, Charles Wang, and Pat LaFontaine have a muddled past, but Milbury of all people should not be making comments about the Islanders and bad choices.  Just take a look at number 10.

10.) So I promised no more comments about his trades with the Islanders, but I had to share this lovely flow chart I found of the 1995-1996 season.  Good luck following it.

You can click here for the full explanation from The Bards Blog.

So that’s all 10 moments, they are in no particular order outside of ease of segue, so please don’t tell me that number 6 should have been number 3.  Do you have a favorite Milbury moment?  Leave it in the comments!