Eyes On Isles
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Islanders: Mark Parrish Thought The Luongo Trade Was A Bad Trade

By Matt O'Leary|
UNIONDALE, NY - NOVEMBER 3: Mark Parrish #37 of the New York Islanders watches the puck during the game against the Pittsburgh Penguins at the Nassau Coliseum on November 3, 2005 in Uniondale, New York. The Penguins won 5-1. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
UNIONDALE, NY - NOVEMBER 3: Mark Parrish #37 of the New York Islanders watches the puck during the game against the Pittsburgh Penguins at the Nassau Coliseum on November 3, 2005 in Uniondale, New York. The Penguins won 5-1. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Mark Parrish thought the New York Islanders giving up Olli Jokinen and Roberto Luongo for him and Oleg Kvasha was a bad deal.

Mike Milbury was known for some pretty awful trades in his day with the New York Islanders. One of the really bad ones was on June 24, 2000, Milbury decided to move Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen to the Panthers for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha.

The Islanders had just used a fourth overall pick on Luongo three years earlier and Jokinen was a former third overall pick that the Islanders got in the Ziggy Palffy trade in 1999 with the Los Angeles Kings.

At the time, Luongo had 24 career NHL games under his belt and Jokinen had just two years in the league and one year with the Islanders. On the flip side, Parrish was coming off a 44 point season that saw him net 26 goals while Kvasha was coming off a 25 point season with the Panthers in back to back years.

The moral of the story, the value the Isles got in return for two former top-five picks was awful. It was so bad, Mark Parrish even knew it at the time.

This video has resurfaced on Isles Twitter recently, so it’s worth mentioning again. “I was two years into my NHL career I was thinking … that’s a bad trade!”

When a 22-year-old kid is saying those things that’s how you know it’s bad. It didn’t stop there, Butch Goring, who was unfortunately behind the bench at the time, chimed in and said that he agreed with Mark Parrish.

Parrish was decent putting up 214 points in 345 career games with the Islanders while Oleg was a pretty big flop. I mean, he did have that one random 51 point season in 2003-2004 but other than that he was someone you could pencil in for 30 points and 12 goals.

As we know Luongo would go on to play over 1,000 games in the NHL finishing with a .919 save percentage and a 2.52 goals against average over a 19-year career. He’s likely headed to the Hall of Fame.

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Olli went on to play for 17 years putting up 750 points in over 1,200 games. His best season was in 2006-2007 when he had 91 points and 39 goals with the Panthers. Talk about a swing and a miss from old Milbury.

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