Yashin an Islander Again?

A shocking story was making the rounds this past weekend that forward Alexei Yashin could in fact be back in a New York Islanders uniform this coming hockey season.

It was only a year ago that New York finally got fed up with Yashin under- achieving and as an organization made the right decision of buying out the remaining four years (at 10 million), of his contract and rebuild while signing some free agents. One area that general manager Garth Snow mentioned that he wanted to improve on this summer was offence. Leading the team in scoring last season was Mike Comrie who came to New York as a free agent and registered 49 points. Meanwhile veteran Bill Guerin who also signed last summer as a free agent led the club with only 23 goals. Desperate for scoring, the rumor is that Yashin, who scored 43 points last year in the Russian League, was in negotiations to sign a one-year contract. “We’ve had discussions,” Yashin’s agent Marc Gandler said. “But it’s been a very slow because I told them in the beginning how much I wanted.” “They’re obviously not happy about that but they clearly missed him” “They didn’t have a first line last season.”

Gandler went on to impose a July 1 deadline for the New York Islanders to reach a decision. Though I don’t pretend to know Yashin personally, I don’t understand why he would want to return to New York with the Islanders. He is a talented hockey player who I believed wore out his welcome in New York. Watching the occasional game, I’ve heard him being booed in New York due to the huge contract hanging over his head and at the time it didn’t seem like his heart was into playing hard.  He had a great season in Russia this past year and said countless times how he enjoyed playing there. My question after reading the article is if he’s happy playing back home, then why is his agent trying to land him a spot with his former team the Islanders?  

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