When I first read what Greg Logan reported in his blog about a certain former Islanders captain, I literally spit the soda I was drinking out of my mouth onto my two-year old cat.

“No way,” I thought to myself. No way could this team possibly be thinking about bringing back a player that never did what everyone expected him to do. No way would this team pay a man to play for them that they are already paying NOT to play for them.

It’s the kind of logic that could kill a Vulcan.

While Alexei Yashin is probably still a sure-fire 60 point a year player in the NHL if he’s healthy, he is the complete opposite of what this team needs now. Rather than AGAIN try and find a band aid for the gaping wound on the heart and soul of this team, the Islanders need to develop the youngsters they have and let a scab form over their identity, before it heals completely.

I don’t know how the rest of Islanders country feels about this, but I feel like the team still hasn’t healed from the Yashin’s time on the Island. Sure the team made the playoffs a couple of years when he was here, but he was never the player the Islanders needed him to be. Never once did he break 90 points or be the bona fide offensive dynamo they needed. Instead, when he first got here, guys like Mark Parrish, Mike Peca and Shawn Bates developed into solid players and Adrian Aucoin became a Norris Trophy candidate. Those players were the real reason this team managed to change the hockey motif on the Island, not Yashin.

After the lockout, Miroslav Satan was brought in to finally silence the critics that said 79 needed a legitimate scorer to play with. That didn’t work either and while Satan scored a solid 35 goals, Yashin still wasn’t what the team needed. A year with Ted Nolan seemed to change Yashin at first, but injuries and a late season slump sealed his fate with the team.

Even though the Isles offense was anemic this season, bringing in Yashin will do much more harm than good. Notice that I’m not even talking about the fact that the Islanders are paying Mike Comrie four million bucks to play center next season. I mean seriously, how much could Yashin want? It has to be more than what Comrie’s making, especially given the fact that he finally learned to play in playoffs in Russia this offseason. Given that, it doesn’t make sense financially for this team to take a chance on him. With the cap space this team has and the amount of youth present, they could bring in the right people and build what could be a legitimate cup contender, given they have the patience and common sense need to do so.

Please say you do. Please.