Mike Keenan took a big step in getting rid of any Canucks that might have played for the team before it was his by trading their longtime captain to the Islanders on Saturday, February 6th.

You heard it right... Trevor Linden is an Islander. The second overall pick in the 1988 draft, who has spent his entire NHL life in Vancouver, got sprung from Canuck coach Mike Keenan's overcrowded doghouse for 22-year-old Islander captain Bryan McCabe, 23-year-old underachieving problem child Todd Bertuzzi and a third-round pick in this year's draft.

Linden's statistics have been miserable for the past two years because of various injuries. His work ethic hasn't been helped any by a fairly public war with Keenan, affectionately known by some as "The Hitler of Hockey." He called the trade part of his overall plan to "move the program forward and in a different direction," admitting that Trevor's recent injuries kept him from getting "on track even before I got here."

"I'd seen him play in 1994 and I wasn't seeing the same player," Keenan said before his ever-morphing Canucks played Edmonton. "I knew that it was within his repertoire to play at that same level again and I thought that should be his own expectation."

McCabe will be missed a lot more than Bertuzzi ever will on Long Island. He led the team in plus/minus (+9) this year, and leaves the Isles with a void in the physical defenseman department. McCabe also suffered from the rare mental condition of actually wanting to play on the Isle, which is something you'd think the Islanders would hold onto a little more carefully.

"I don't know what's going on," the sixth captain in Islander history said, distressed. "I'm shocked. I'm sad to leave the boys, I've been with these guys my whole career."

"I figured I was just named captain so I'd stick around for awhile," said McCabe. "I guess I'm stupid to think like that."

Keenan called McCabe "a cornerstone piece for this franchise."

Milbury, who didn't seem the least bit upset about losing Bertuzzi (who has been nothing but a 6'3", 224-pound headache for him since he arrived), said it wasn't easy to let McCabe go. "I'm heartsick, at moments, over losing McCabe," he said. "I don't think my daughter will ever speak to me again."

The Isles GM seemed more than happy to wash his hands of Bertuzzi. "If I ever felt [Bertuzzi] was going to fulfill his potential, I'd be a fool to make the deal, because his potential is so vast." The Islanders have spend three years trying to tap into that potential. "He's been hugged and kissed and educated," Milbury said. "We tried everything short of bamboo shoots under the fingernails."

"It just hasn't come around for Todd," summarized Milbury. "It's a project Mike Keenan is looking forward to."

Linden, who is playing in his tenth season (he scored 30 or more goals in six of them) is still only 27 years old. "It only seems like he's been around forever," notes Milbury. He was captain of his team for most of his tenure there, a title he surrendered to the rapidly aging Mark Messier when he shipped out to the 'Couv to make his fortune just before this season.

Trevor was quite the ironman in the first eight years of his NHL career, but over the past year and a half he's sat out roughly 50% of the games. In fact, he was damaged goods at the time of the trade. He hasn't played in a game since January 26th when he sprained his left knee. The whole trade will be nullified if he doesn't pass a physical exam by Islander doctors. But you have to figure he's not TOO damaged, since he's supposed to play for Team Canada in the Olympics.

Still, he's been pretty fragile for a big tough dude who at one time played 611 of a possible 618 games. You have to wonder with these power forward types as they get older... They all seem to go the way of Cam Neely and Gary Roberts when their bodies can't take the abuse any more. Yeah, sure, Milbury can go around saying "he's only 27" all he wants, but the fact is Linden's been through a lot of wars for a 27-year-old. If I was going to buy a 1994 Ford Bronco that had 250,000 miles on it and had been in the shop for the last six months, damn skippy I would tell the guy trying sell it to knock a few bucks off the asking price. And you wouldn't ever hear me trying to tell you that "it's only four years old."

But I guess, as with any other trade, this one will be measured in wins and losses. Like Jimmy Johnson in the NFL, Keenan will not rest until he has torn apart what was a decent team and molded it in the image of his own ego.

The Islanders seem to be trying to add some experience to their youth, and get some of the scoring beef up front they were never able to get out of Todd "The Sleeping Bear" Bertuzzi. Or something. Really, when a team names a 21-year-old as their new captain and then trades him for a guy with a bum knee, you really have to wonder whether they even know what the hell they're doing.

[ issues | web extra | stats | nhl archive | home | chat | mailing list | about us | search | comments ]

1998 © Copyright LCS Hockey All Rights Reserved