Upon waking up this morning, I noticed that I had a nasty looking whitehead on my chin. After my post-wakeup scratch and yawn like Simon Pegg in “Shaun of the Dead,” I proceeded to head to the bathroom mirror, where I popped that pimple like no pimple has ever been popped before, ending what could have been an eyesore and a distraction for weeks if not kept under control.

Little did I know as I was doing that, Charles Wang and the New York Islanders were popping the biggest pimple in the organization, one Alexei Yashin, effectively changing the entire motif and outlook for next year and the future of hockey on Long Island. Buying out the former superstar’s contract for $17.63 million, Wang and the Islanders will be hit with a modest $2.2 million against their salary cap for the next eight seasons. In my opinion, this is probably the smartest thing Wang could have done in this situation, since their hands were pretty tied up in this situation.

I mean, seriously, the Islanders got themselves in quite a conundrum here. They had a former superstar that just didn’t fit in with their plans and on top of all of that, he doesn’t seem to want to give his all every night, prompting the fans to get infuriated as well. If Yashin was scoring 85 points a year and still had this kind of passion-less demeanor on the ice, I’m sure that Isles fans wouldn’t have been so tough on him.

It seems that over the past few weeks, Wang has been listening to Ace of Base, because I think he saw “The Sign.” Supposedly, ticket sales for next season weren’t where they should have been and I know for a fact that a petition was going around the net that was pleading Wang to let Yashin go [Sorry I didn’t sign it guys, but I am a journalist, it’s bad enough that I’m a fan of the team, that more than enough of a conflict of interest]. Those two things, combined with that fact that many believe Ryan Smyth doesn’t want to be a part of any team that has Yashin on it probably sealed the deal.

I know it must have been a tough decision for Wang, who was a big fan of the former Islander captain, but that’s how real life is. The guy failed to do his job every single year he was on this team to score a point per game and was incredibly inconsistent. Sure I mean, there were times when Yashin looked unstoppable, but for the most part, he never had the passion that this team needed to get out of the first round of the playoffs. His reign as Islander captain was also a joke as his play on the ice stayed exactly the same and he was never going to be able t be the vocal leader the team needed to evolve into something much more inspiring.

Making the playoffs four out of the past five years still hasn’t changed the fact that the Islanders are still the Rodney Dangerfield’s of the NHL. Getting Yashin out of the way is the first step in making sure this team gets the respect they deserve. Now all they have to do is pickup the right players that can make the team better.

During this season, when Yashin started out so strong, I thought that finally this guy had woken up. Damn was I wrong on that one. In the end, Yashin was like the beautiful woman with a bi-polar personality, you never knew what you were going to get from him on any given day. If things were good, then alright, but when things were bad, they were really atrocious. But given the circumstance that things had a propensity of eventually getting good again, you tend to give that person another shot.

After a half decade of missed opportunities, I’m happy to say that Alexei Yashin can go shoot pucks for someone else.

Posted under Isles Thoughts 2007