Sean Bergenheim wants back in, but don’t expect him to be wearing an Islanders uniform this season.
He may never wear one again.
In all likelihood, Bergenheim’s agent, Mark Gandler, will seek a trade to get his client back with an NHL team ASAP, because the odds of Bergenheim playing with the Isles this year are somewhere between getting hit by lightning and winning the lotto.
Bergenheim, 22, wasn’t in camp with the team last month, he wasn’t signed by the first practice in Yarmouth, and therefore the 2002 first-round pick (No. 22) will not play for the team this year. Owner CharlesWang has an unbreakable rule in place that if a player holds out, he doesn’t play for the entire year.
Last year, Mark Parrish drove through the Nova Scotia night to beat the radical owner’s deadline, and if one thing was made clear this summer, it’s that Wang is not someone to mess with. Go ask Neil Smith about what happens when you rub the maverick owner – or the people who work for him – the wrong way. Bergenheim and Gandler, who also represents Alexei Yashin, rubbed quite a few people within the organization the wrong way during the summertime divorce.
Bergenheim refused multiple offers this summer from the Isles and left the team to play in Russia.
On the way out the door, Bergenheim’s camp said how insulted he was by a pair of deals rookie GM Garth Snow offered.
Initial excuses given for Bergenheim’s rash decision were pinned on Smith’s recent firing and Wang’s unconventional, hands-on ownership practices. Even a personal call from Snow to Bergenheim in Finland could not sway him back.
Gandler’s other client, Denis Grebeshkov, also declined to play for the Isles this season and is in Russia. The Islanders retain the rights to both players.
Bergenheim, who ironically got into a dust-up with Snow in camp last year, first refused a two-way deal that would have paid him a $700,000 NHL salary ($80,000 AHL). He also turned down a $500,000 one-way deal that came with a guaranteed roster spot.
Now he wants back in. But Bergenheim and Gandler crossed Wang – the same guy who told commissioner Gary Bettman to stick it when advised against Rick DiPietro’s 15-year contract. They picked a fight with the wrong guy, and Bergenheim may lose a year of his hockey life over it.
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Jeff Tambellini went down as the final cut Friday when he was sent to Bridgeport as Ted Nolan pared the roster to 22 players. The team carried an extra forward “just in case,” Nolan said, for the seven-day, season-opening trip out west. Tambellini earned roughly $14,000 in NHL wages for the week.