At the annual Entry Draft last season, Mike Milbury said himself that this is his "last chance to rebuild". After not making the playoffs in six years, Milbury started from scratch again at the 2000 draft - his last chance to try and create a winning franchise on the island.

He started by trading away promising, young goaltender Roberto Loungo to the Florida Panthers and, a few months earlier, goalie Felix Potvin, who was looking for a place to re-gain his status as a solid number one goalie as he was in 1993 with Toronto.

With the first overall pick in the 2000 draft, Milbury made history, making a goaltender the first overall pick, American Rick DiPietro. However, DiPietro played in just eighteen games and had a dismal 3-15 record with a 3.49 GAA. Milbury was going "mad" again, expecting the impossible - superb goaltending - from a inexperienced, 19-year-old goaltender.

The Islanders finished the season last in the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division, 20 points behind their cross-state rivals, the New York Rangers.

Two weeks ago, at the 2001 Entry Draft, Milbury continued his final attempt of creating a winner. With the second overall pick, Milbury decided that more youth was not the way to go and, instead, he dealt that second overall pick (center Jason Spezza), big defenseman Zedno Chara, and right wing Bill Muckalt to the Ottawa Senators for 1999 MVP nominee, 90-point center Alexei Yashin.

To add depth down the middle, the Islanders sent promising young forwards Tim Connolly and Taylor Pyatt to the Buffalo Sabres for a small physically, but a big gamebreaker centerman, Mike Peca. Plus, with winger Mariusz Czerkawski, the team's leader in five offensive statistical categories, the Islanders seem to have a pretty powerful team.

But don't be fooled.

The Isles are not nearly a playoff team yet, despite these acquisitions. Not only are the Islanders very weak offensively compared to teams such as Dallas, Philadelphia, New Jersey, or Colorado, but they are still very much weak defensively, not doing anything to improve that aspect this offseason thus far, and it all starts in goal. Rick DiPietro will be getting some veteran help in goal next season, as the team signed Garth Snow just a few days ago, but he was 14-15-4 last season in Pittsburgh, and, although he was fully recovered from a late-season injury a few games before the Stanley Cup Playoffs, he lost the starting job in the post season to rookie Johan Hedberg. Very much so, the Islanders are weak in goal, though Milbury and rookie head coach Peter Laviolette will be putting their hopes in DiPietro to have a break-out year.

Additionally, the Islanders are weak defensively before the puck even gets to the goaltender. Just one defenseman had a plus-minus rating above 0, and that was Kevin Haller, with just a +5 rating. There are rumors that the Islanders will try to trade for former Islander defenseman Darius Kasparitus from the Pittsburgh Penguins, but if the rumors about this are correct, they will give up their best player last year, Czerkawski.

If you are expecting big things from the Islanders next season, you will be disappointed. They've expanded their budget and are now in a panic, "win now" mode, but it won't work. "Mad" Mike has changed his strategy more than twenty times in the past five years on how to build this team (more youth than veterans, or more veterans than youth, etc.), and if the team isn't one of the final sixteen teams come April, his time on the island should be done.

I'm not sure whose name the team owners of the Islanders have been writing down at the "tribal councils" lately, but it will definitely be "'Mad' Mike Milbury" after yet another failed attempt by him to build a winning hockey club.

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