Milbury’s Way : Islanders Have Far to Go to Fit Image New Coach Envisioned When He Left TV to Return to NHL

Mike Milbury’s tie had been loosened and his hair mussed by his fingers’ distracted combing. His expression was a mixture of distress and disbelief, because no matter what coaching strategy he devises, no matter what he says or does, the New York Islanders continue to lose.

On this night, a player he had penciled into the lineup never got the word and didn’t show up until 30 minutes before the game, too late to play. Then the Islanders, who had been humiliated by the Kings in their previous game, played the Mighty Ducks evenly for 60 minutes but failed to complete a routine line change in overtime. Short-handed for six or eight seconds, they let the Ducks score with three-tenths of a second to go.

“We gave ourselves a chance to win and botched that,” Milbury said. “Somebody came off and nobody else went on. Sometimes you have to physically throw them on the ice.”

He didn’t have to throw himself into this mess. Milbury, who last March turned down an offer to become the Kings’ coach and general manager, could have stayed in his comfortable seat in the ESPN studio, where he glibly analyzed coaches’ mistakes and then went home to a peaceful night’s sleep.

Although Islander General Manager Don Maloney joked last week, “Why the hell he’d want this job, I don’t know,” Milbury was drawn back to coaching after a four-year absence. Despite a 3-13-2 record--and the prospect of a rematch with the Kings Wednesday in New York--he has no regrets.

“On a relative scale [TV] is less stressful, and when the game is over, it’s over,” he said. “When you’ve said what you’ve had to say and if it doesn’t work out, nobody is going to remember it anyway, in all likelihood. It’s just a blip on the screen. But it can be a lot of fun. So can coaching.

“As a coach, you’re much closer to the action. It’s a much more tangible satisfaction, seeing young players improve and trying to get a team to act like a team and trying to get a team to come together. It’s frustrating when it doesn’t happen, but it’s really satisfying when it does.”

Milbury was hired last summer to mold the Islanders in his image and give them the direction they have lacked since they won the Stanley Cup four consecutive years, 1980 through ’83. As a defenseman for the Boston Bruins for 12 seasons, Milbury was conscientious, competitive and intelligent. He was also combative, once climbing into the stands with teammates Peter McNab and Terry O’Reilly to silence a heckler in New York’s Madison Square Garden.

As a coach, he led Boston to the 1990 Cup finals and to the semifinals in 1991. Feeling he had taken the team as far as it could go before it would need an overhaul, he moved into the front office to become an assistant to General Manager Harry Sinden. He spent three years there before he tired of dealing with agents, contracts and administrative details, and left to become coach at Boston College.

“I had felt even after I gave up my coaching duties with the Bruins that I might have been premature as I got into the management end of things,” Milbury said. “So I made a move to get back into coaching. It was a lower-key level, and it was a good time for it.”

Despite promises of latitude and free tuition for his four children, he left Boston College after a few months. His settlement with the school prohibits him from discussing his departure, but he said what he was assured and what he was allowed to do were “dramatically different.”

ESPN gave him a haven and kept his name before NHL clubs. The Kings wooed him but he implied that the situation wasn’t tempting enough.

“My oldest son is going to college this year and my second son was ticketed to go to prep school in New Hampshire so I wanted to be on the East Coast,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to systematically rule everything else out,” he added. “I was going to hold on at ESPN until a situation presented itself that I thought was right for me. And I felt I owed it to ESPN to finish out the year.”

The situation seemed right when the Islanders offered him $3.5 million over five years.

“I really thought we needed an identity because of the lack of personality on the team,” Maloney said. “Looking out at the marketplace at who was available, certainly Mike brought an identity. He played the game and had success, and he had success as a coach. His teams always played hard, and that’s what we were looking for. It was an easy choice once we found him.”

It has been anything but easy since.

Milbury planned to build around youngsters and a few stars, but no one anticipated that one of those stars, Kirk Muller, would dislike New York and not put his heart into playing there. On Maloney’s orders, Muller left the team and is awaiting a trade. Nor did anyone figure the goaltending would be so inept or the defense so spotty.

“The club doesn’t seem to have an awful lot of talent, and you can only do so much,” said Peter McNab, Milbury’s teammate on the Boston Bruins and still a good friend. “It’s a slow process of getting them to play an intense style. He doesn’t want dancers. He wants guys who are going to be there every night, getting involved and working hard.”

Hoping to stir players’ pride, Milbury told them at a practice to take off their jerseys because they weren’t playing like a team and didn’t need to dress like one. Afterward, while showing game films, he stopped every few seconds and pointedly asked, “Any questions?”

He has benched veteran winger Wendel Clark, talented young defenseman Mathieu Schneider and promising rookie Ziggy Palffy. Nothing has made an impact.

“They seem to work extremely hard in workouts and practices, and it’s not that they’re not working hard in games, but they’re not working with any kind of awareness on the ice,” Milbury said.

“[The 9-2 loss to the Kings] was a prime example of what will happen if this team isn’t really alert to its defensive responsibilities, and it’s been a struggle to get them to do it. When they accomplish it, we don’t generate any offense. It seems as if we get it at one end, but not the other.”

Winger Derek King sees the losses taking a toll on Milbury.

“He’s been pretty patient, but it’s tough for everybody, not just for him,” King said. “It’s not a pretty sight. We’ve got to play better basic hockey. Until we start doing that, it’s going to be ugly.”

Already, rumors have flown that Maloney will be fired as general manager and replaced by Milbury. But Maloney said he doesn’t feel threatened by Milbury.

“We have a great relationship,” Maloney said. “If somebody decides in the bigger picture Mike should have both jobs, so be it. I have faith things will work out.”

Said Milbury of returning to an executive job: “I hope I’ll be here doing this for five years and then take a look at where things are. I don’t see it getting any easier for managers in this day and age, so maybe not.”

His immediate decision is whether to continue trying to get the Islanders to play solid, man-to-man defense, or to retrench and come up with something easier.

“Trying to judge, ‘Should we fall back? Should we play in a shell?’ Nine out of 10 times you’re doomed to failure,” he said. “I think the way we play defensively, the philosophy I have, is a little more aggressive than what Larry [Robinson, the Kings’ coach] tries to teach.

“I’d prefer if we’re going to lose and we’re going with younger guys, to develop a system which will bring them success more gradually but will give them responsibility, rather than make it easy for them by saying, ‘Here, fellas, fall back.’ I want something they can build on rather than lean on. . . .

“This is a relentless job, and you have to love the wackiness of it. If you don’t, you shouldn’t be doing it.”