Mick Vukota – New York Islanders
He was pretty awful at hockey at the NHL level, the very definition of a bender. But his willingness to play enforcer kept him employed in the league for 573 games, 509 of them with the Rangers’ suburban rivals.
Vukota amassed 2,701 career penalty minutes, 1,879 for the Islanders. He, somehow, managed 17 goals and 46 points along the way.
During the second of a home-and-home set versus the Rangers in October 1989, the Isles’ fourth-liner caught talented center Carey Wilson with a knee-on-knee hit away from the play. Wilson missed two months.
Vukota wasn’t ejected or suspended, and later in the match wrestled with Troy Mallette after the Blueshirts’ rookie winger was given a match penalty for gouging the eye of defenseman Dean Chynoweth. Well, at least the Rangers won, 4-1.
In the 1990 Patrick Division Semifinals versus the Rangers, a pair of hits by James Patrick and Chris Nilan in Game One knocked out Islanders standout Pat Lafontaine. Literally. He reportedly was out cold for at least 30 seconds. Neither Nilan nor Patrick were penalized, which infuriated the Isles.
With two seconds remaining and the Rangers up 2-1, Islanders coach Al Arbour sent out Vukota, who promptly mauled Jeff Bloemberg. At 6-foot-2, 200 pounds, Bloemberg had the size to handle himself.
Problem is, he was a Born Again Christian and didn’t believe in fighting. Thus, he turtled and Vukota had the easiest bout of his career. To be fair, most agree that had Vukota known Bloemberg was opposed to fisticuffs, he wouldn’t have engaged the Rangers’ player.
Nonetheless it was a garbage move by the Isles — one that drew the ire of Blueshirts’ announcers Sam Rosen, who called Vukota a “jerk”, and John Davidson, who said the Islanders “look like garbage” on the play.