Dan Milstein sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong — Criticizes Red Wings for scratching Alexey Marchenko

You may know Dan Milstein as the man behind the events leading up to Pavel Datsyuk’s early retirement from the NHL — a highly controversial event that was deemed to be caused by family-related reasons. Totally understandable on Datsyuk’s part, but what gets overlooked is Milstein’s role in helping create this situation and his apparent glee in having gotten over on the Wings in that deal. On Tuesday night, the “highly-acclaimed” agent took to Twitter to weigh in on another Russian who plays for the Red Wings:

The tweet has since been removed from Milstein’s agent account. If you look at the third avatar in from the right, he favorited the tweet from his personal account.

First thing’s first, I’ll be abundantly clear — the Red Wings are a bad team. No doubt about it. But the way Milstein delivers this message reads that Marchenko is a top-pair point-producing defenseman. Marchenko has six points on the season, all of which being assists — zero goals. I like Marchenko, I think he’s a solid, young defenseman with a decently bright future as a middle-to-bottom pair defenseman in the NHL.

Milstein’s message in this tweet is a backhanded comment to the Red Wings organization, who might deserve a fair bit of criticism, but were the victim of Milstein and his dirty tricks when Pavel Datsyuk decided to hang up his skates during the 2016 offseason. But hold on — there’s more to this story.

Alexey Marchenko’s agent is apparently not with Gold Star — Milstein’s sports management firm. Marchenko is listed with Octagon Hockey. You may recall Octagon representative Allan Walsh in his nearly season-long fiasco with his client Jonathan Drouin against the Tampa Bay Lightning. I have a source that cannot confirm Marchenko being a client of Milstein’s, so apparently this agent is some Capser The Friendly Ghost to NHL players from Russia.

Simply put, Dan Milstein is sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. He’s kicking up dust on turf that doesn’t belong to him. Why is that? Is it because of his past with managing Pavel Datsyuk while he was with the Red Wings? Perhaps, but any way you want to look at it, Milstein’s abhorrent tactics as a player-based agent raise a huge red flag.

There’s nothing about Milstein’s comments that are against the CBA rules, but what matters is that it’s a crappy display of respect for a team that housed a client that made his name even close to reputable (and even that’s a stretch).

Again, I reiterate, Marchenko is a fine player, and perhaps he deserves to be playing over dismal veterans like Niklas Kronwall, but Milstein’s comments are a putrid example of bad business. I never liked the guy, and I caught some flak for being that way, but now I feel more comfortable saying that Dan Milstein is a snake.