NHL All-Quarter Century Team serving as painful reminder for NY Islanders fans

This week, the NHL named its All-Quarter Century Team, honoring the league’s greatest players from the past 25 years, and two names instantly brought a familiar sting to the hearts of New York Islanders fans: Zdeno Chara and Roberto Luongo.

Chara, with his towering presence and Norris Trophy resume, and Luongo, the charismatic and consistently solid netminder, became one of the league's all-time greats. They are both incredibly deserving of being recognized as two of the best players since 2000. We just wish they had much more of a history with the Islanders during the previous 25 years.

The team's social media account posted separate posts for Chara and Luongo, and we understand why. These are two Hall-of-Famers who were drafted by the Islanders and started their careers on Long Island. However, for Isles fans old enough to remember, it’s a bit of a gut punch and a flashback to two of the worst trades in franchise history.

Let’s start with Luongo. Drafted fourth overall in 1997, he was supposed to be the goaltender of the future. But in 2000, then-GM Mike Milbury shipped Luongo to Florida in a move that had the league scratching their heads and the fanbase doing the same decades later. The return? Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha. Serviceable, sure—but franchise-altering? Not even close. To make it worse, that trade was part of the same sequence of moves that led to drafting Rick DiPietro first overall, ahead of Dany Heatley and Marian Gaborik. That’s a different story and a different wound of what could have been on Long Island.

Then there’s Chara. Drafted in the third round in 1996, he was raw but promising. By 2001, he was included in the infamous Alexei Yashin trade with Ottawa. That blockbuster deal for the former 40-goal scorer who held out the previous season also cost us the Islanders the second pick in that year’s draft (which turned into Jason Spezza). While Yashin, who would go on to serve as the team's captain, was part of an Islanders' resurgence, the team never surpassed the first round of the playoffs.. Instead, while Chara became one of his era's best shutdown defenders and a future Hall of Famer.

So yeah, seeing Chara and Luongo on that list? It doesn’t just remind us how great they became—it reminds us that they became great somewhere else. And not because they walked away in free agency. Because we gave them away. So while we understand they are part of the franchise's history, which, in theory, should be something to be proud of, it also brings back memories of two of the worst trades in the last quarter century.

Oh, and current, but we don't know how for much longer head coach, Patrick Roy was also named to the All-Quarter Century team, pretty impressive considering he won two Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens before the year 2000, but his Colorado resume is plenty impressive enough.