Does Charles Wang Care?

 photo courtesy of http://cdn.newsday.com/

Yesterdays acquisition of Tim Thomas phantom cap hit has made me think of something, does Charles Wang care? 

I know on the surface Wang does care about the team because of how long he fought to get the new arena eventually settling on Brooklyn.  However, does he care about whether the team is successful or not?  I right now don't feel that he does.

A couple years ago, in the midst of one of our usual early season losing streaks Wang told Newsday that "at least we aren't getting killed out there every night."  People wonder why players wont come here?  Sure the arena had somewhat of an effect, but when your owner doesn't care about winning why as a player would you come here?

Over the last few years, Wang has repeatedly brought in people with little to experience for positions that were open within the organization and most recently he acquired Tim Thomas phantom cap hit last night.  I didn't think of this at the time, but last night the team played like they were just punched in the stomach.  In a way with the pre game acquisition of Thomas they were because of the message the trade sends to the locker room.

The Thomas move is basically setting the Islanders up to trade off assets by the April 3rd trade deadline if not sooner and not go below the cap floor.  The Islanders might be the only team in the NHL who sets up their own fire sale just ten games into the season when they are sitting in the 8th spot.  This move was a slap in the face to fans and its a shame that nobody in the press credentialed media will call Wang or Garth out on this because they are probably scared of getting their credentials taken away like what happened to Chris Botta a couple years ago.

To me, this is blatant cap floor circumvention and it blows my mind that the NHL allowed it.  The fact that the Islanders were the team to find the loop hole allowing them to do this doesn't surprise me in the slightest though.