It still amazes me as to how a player this good and this dominant, and at a position of such importance, could be traded -- twice! -- for such awful returns.
When discussing Zdeno Chara and Jason Spezza in my top 50, I made mention of how then-Islanders general manager Mike Milbury traded the future Norris Trophy winning defenseman, and the pick that was used on Spezza for Alexei Yashin, and how infamously bad it ended up being. Not even that was bad enough to make up for the sting that was his June 24, 2000 deal that sent Luongo -- and Olli Jokinen -- to the Florida Panthers for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha. Luongo, of course, blossomed into an elite goaltender for the Panthers, while Jokinen eventually developed into a consistent 30-goal scorer.
The recent SABR explosion in Major League Baseball has changed the way fans watch the game and evaluate the players taking part. Out are batting average and ERA; in are On-Base Percentage and WHIP. If you're a hockey fan looking for the same type of advancements, Behind The Net is a must-bookmark, as well as the folks at Puck Prospectus.
Hockey may be trailing baseball and the other major sports when it comes to advanced statistical analysis, but the gap is starting to close, and Gabriel Desjardins, lead man of Behind The Net and contributor to Puck Prospectus, is one of the people at the forefront.
The real NHL awards will be handed out Thursday night in Las Vegas, so FanHouse decided to hand out its own special awards for the 2008-09 season.
It's designed to maintain competitive balance and parity across the league, but if you waste valuable salary cap space on free agents that don't pan out or contribute the way you expected, you're pretty much stuck without a paddle because nobody is going to bail you out and take that albatross contract off your hands.
Introducing the FanHouse nominees for the Wade Redden Award for Wasted Cap Space.
A couple of weeks ago, TSN hockey analyst Gord Miller came to the conclusion that in order for the Pittsburgh Penguins to remain competitive in the NHL, they would have to deal the league's leading scorer, Evgeni Malkin, for a first-line winger, a No. 2 center, and "hopefully" a pick or a prospect. It was a laughable proposal.
On Sunday night, Rob Rossi, Penguins beat writer for the Tribune-Review, appeared on a weekly Pittsburgh talk show and suggested the team would be wise to put Sidney Crosby on the trade block this offseason. I guess this is what happens when you go from being two wins away from hoisting the Stanley Cup to being the No. 10 team in the Eastern Conference in a matter of one season.
As the NHL All-Star Break continues, keep up with FanHouse's coverage of hockey's unofficial midway point.
Some say there's no point to even salvaging this disaster, and Bruce Ciskie and Earl Sleek will debate that point later. For now, my colleague Eric McErlain and I will assume that the game isn't going away, and discuss what's wrong and how to fix it.
A couple of weeks back we saw news surface that former New York Islander Alexei Yashin wanted back with the team that only a year before had bought him out of his massive contract. Now it looks like he wants off the Island for good.
According to the Newsday blog, Real LI, Yashin has put the home he shares with former fashion model Carol Alt in Old Westbury on the market for $11 million:
Public records show that Yashin purchased the six-bedroom, 9,200-square-foot mansion on 3.26 acres in 2002 for $3.877 million. The home has an elevator, newly built home theater, billiards room, pool and tennis courts.
As difficult as it might be to believe, Alexei Yashin wants to return to Long Island. That's Yashin and his wife, Long Island native Carol Alt, pictured at right at a premiere of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in Manhattan back in April.
But that's not what's most unbelievable about this story. What's most unbelievable is that the Islanders are actually considering it. It was only a week ago that the team announced that it was letting go of a passel of veterans, all in the interest of giving their younger players a shot at significant minutes next season.
Not that Yashin doesn't deserve some consideration at this point, even if it's not on the Island. Playing last year at Yaroslavl in the RSL, Yashin had 16 goals and 27 assists in the regular season and added eight goals and six assists in 16 playoff games as his team made it to the Finals.
So what's the hangup? According to Gandler, the Islanders seem to be balking at his asking price, while the agent also seems to think that Yashin's fractured relationship with Islanders head coach Ted Nolan might be a bit problematic as well.
Color me shocked. So should Islanders fans be worried? Maybe. After all, Yashin had a very close relationship with Islanders owner Charles Wang, one that resulted in the team holding on to the veteran a full season or two longer than they should have. Is that relationship enough to move Wang to direct his hockey professionals to bring Yashin back? Stay tuned.
Just when you thought Alexei Yashin was gone forever, the New York Times had to go out of its way to find him.
The reason: Reporter Michael Schwirtz followed Yashin and his ex-supermodel wife, Carol Alt, for a couple of days on the circuit around the Russian Super League. The ex-Islander is on a one-year contract with Lokomotiv, this after the Islanders bought him out of his massive contract at the end of last season.
So what's Schwirtz's angle? Essentially, that after years of yearning to play in the NHL, more and more quality Russian players are opting stay home and play in the RSL.
But is it really happening? Not exactly. Sure, Yashin is a big name, but he was one sent packing with his tail between his legs after an embarrassing end to his tenure to New York. And the other big names he mentions, Darius Kasparaitis, Oleg Tverdovsy and Oleg Petrov, aren't exactly the sort of players you'd see on an All-Star roster with any regularity anymore.
The real story, however, is one that Schwirtz buries deep in the article and has been covered elsewhere in North America beginning a couple of weeks ago: Namely, that the folks behind the Russian Super League, in concert with the Russian Hockey Federation and some folks who control the purse strings at energy giant Gazprom, want to create a Pan European Super League.
For as long as one-time supermodel Carol Alt has been in the public spotlight, she's had a thing for hockey players. First there was her marriage to former New York Ranger Ron Greschner, followed by her ill-defined relationship with former New York Islanders center Alexei Yashin (Married, yes, no, maybe?).
Turns out I might not be the only one wondering if this report from the New York Post is correct -- and I can't quite believe that I just wrote that:
If you want to make time with Carol Alt, bring a hockey stick. The former model, once married to ex-Ranger Ron Greschner, was spotted backstage in the W downtown lounge with current Blueshirt Henrik Lundqvist - not boyfriend Islander Alexi Yashin.
Did you really expect the girl to follow Yashin to Siberia? You've got to hand it to Alt. After all, it's usually rich men from Manhattan who get into the habit of trading in for a newer model every couple of years.
There was some wonder and speculation as to whether ex-supermodel Carol Alt would follow her long-time companion*, Alexei Yashin, over to Russia for a year while he plays hockey with Lokomotiv.
The answer appears to be NO, although Alt will pay him visits and send cute little text messages like "No screwing teh Russian suprmdls, lolz =) "
Carol, the good little bunny that she is, also tries to play a little PR rep for Yashin by claiming that her companion* just needs to play where he is 'treated like a god' and that Alexei isn't greedy, just misunderstood. (Now I know what it tastes like to throw up in my own mouth. Yuck.)
"He loved Ottawa and he wanted to stay there, and he asked for an (contract) extension and sat out a season," she said, referring to the 1999-2000 season, when Yashin was suspended for the season by the Senators after refusing to report to the team. "This is a guy who gave up $3.6 million to get what he wanted, which was an extension contract in Ottawa.
"Then they write about in the papers how greedy he is. Can you imagine how misunderstood this whole thing was?"
Oh, yeah, d00d is just misunderstood, right? He's signing over in Russia simply because of being homesick, right? He signed a 10-year $87.5mil contract with the Islanders simply because he loved Nassau Country so much and didn't want to leave, right? He shuts it down during the playoffs, when he doesn't get paid, and he's not greedy? Riiiiiiiiiiight.
Am I supposed to feel sympathy for this dickhead? Oh, Ka$hin Ya$hin doesn't want more money, he just needs his massive ego stroked like a Shih Tzu *eyeroll*.
Don't forget, Yashin made a very public donation to an Ottawa museum (to make himself look like a hero), just to funnel money to his parents (who received very large 'salaries') without paying taxes. Yashin and greed go together like hot dogs and mustard.
If the people of Russia want to treat this greedy shill like a god, they are very much welcome to. We just don't need some over-the-hill ex-model telling us how 'wrong' we supposedly are.
What's next, Carol? Telling us that Global Warming doesn't exist?
FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 6 is Vancouver Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo.
The recent SABR explosion in Major League Baseball has changed the way fans watch the game and evaluate the players taking part. Out are batting average and ERA; in are On-Base Percentage and WHIP. If you're a hockey fan looking for the same type of advancements, 
The real NHL awards will be handed out Thursday night in Las Vegas, so FanHouse decided to hand out its own special awards for the 2008-09 season.
A couple of weeks ago, TSN hockey analyst Gord Miller 
A couple of weeks back we saw news surface that former New York Islander 
As difficult as it might be to believe, 
Just when you thought Alexei Yashin was gone forever, the New York Times had to go out of its way to find him.
For as long as one-time supermodel 
There was some wonder and speculation as to whether ex-supermodel Carol Alt would follow her long-time companion*, Alexei Yashin, over to Russia for a year 
