Over the past 15 years, Islanders fans have dealt with bad trades, poor draft choices and lackluster decisions that have fragmented a once proud organization. One of the players that slipped away that is still brought up to this day is Todd Bertuzzi.

While his star has dimmed substantially over the past few seasons, to the point where he’s bounced around the league at an almost Mike Sillinger-esque pace, five years ago, the power forward was arguably one of the best in the league. Playing with players the likes of Marcus Naslund and the Sedin twins in Vancouver, Bertuzzi was a steady 40-goal scorer with the kind of toughness and desire that made many think he was the next incarnation of Cam Neeley or Clark Gillies.

A few years before that however, he was a fresh face on a young Islanders team full of them.

Scoring 18 goals in his rookie season, the shaggy-haired winger looked like he was ready to take the next step in his development, but over the next few seasons, a mish-mash of inconsistency, immaturity and lack of playing time made most feel that if he was ever going to get a chance to be a star, it wasn’t going to be with the Islanders.

Nevertheless, there were plenty of moments where Bertuzzi proved he had the ability to be a lot more than a third line grinder.

One game in particular against the Philadelphia Flyers I remember Bertuzzi deked around three defenders and beat the goaltender with one of the nastiest backhands I’ve ever seen. That same game, he landed about three or four vicious hits along the boards as well. It seemed whenever he was on his game, he played at a level that was far better than any of the players around him. To this day, I wonder what the Islanders could have been like if they had Ziggy Palffy, and Bertuzzi on the same line and on the same page. It would have been my teenage hockey fantasy [well, maybe Alyssa Milano in an Islanders Jersey anywhere else but a hockey rink was my teenage hockey fantasy, but I digress] that’s what.

Unfortunately, that situation just never came to be. For every game Bertuzzi was solid, there were three more where he took a bad penalty and didn’t hustle, causing Mike Milbury to put him on garbage pick up, where he never lived up to his true potential.

It’s a situation that will always leave Islander fans wondering.

As for me, I’ll just remember the good times, the few there were.

Photo by Elsa Hasch /Allsport

Posted under Blast From the Past, Isles Memories