Since 1994, one guy has spent the spring working in the playoffs, while the other has spent most of his springs planning ways to survive the summer.

	Three years removed from his '98 Stanley Cup, Osgood is proving his worth with the Isles.

Chris Osgood in net for Detroit, Mike Milbury in the spotlight everyone largely ignored on Long Island.

Twenty years difference in age, yet with hockey stress levels equally purged.

How poetic that the two meet here and now.

"I can tell you," said Milbury, still the Islanders general manager, "that no one -- and I mean no one -- predicted we were going to get off to this kind of start. That goes for me, too. The guys that have been here a while feel just like me -- relieved. We feel we finally have a team that can compete in this league every night."

Don't look now -- Islanders fans might be afraid to open their eyes and discover it all a mean-spirited joke -- but Nassau County's dream team is 9-0-1-1. Osgood has started and finished all but one of them, compiling a 1.85 goals-against average and .936 saves percentage.

Aside from the Flyers' resurrected Brian Boucher -- who will go face-to-face with Osgood and the Islanders in Philadelphia on Saturday -- Osgood has probably been the hottest starting goalie in the league of late. He was also the NHL's player of the month for October, an award indicative of his play and the Islanders' fast and confounding start.

Considering that a financially freed Milbury acquired both Michael Peca and Alexei Yashin at the June draft, and then moved to bring in Osgood at the end of the preseason, perhaps the early success of New York's other hockey team shouldn't be such a surprise. The only team with a better record happens to be Osgood's old one, those Cup favorites in Detroit, who host the Islanders Friday night at Joe Louis Arena.

"I'm looking forward to going back, just to see friends around the area and in their locker room," Osgood said. "But I'm going back with mixed emotions."

What Osgood, 28, left behind in Detroit is certainly an emotion-laden, mixed bag of memories. As far back as 1993-94, he was a standout Red Wings rookie who played more than half their games. But he wouldn't assume a solid starting mantle until 1995, taking the Wings deep into the Western Conference playoffs the following spring.

But when Hockeytown won its long-awaited Stanley Cup in 1997, Osgood would be sitting on the bench watching aged Mike Vernon tend goal. His chance came a year later, however, manning the net as the Wings won their second consecutive Cup.

Even then, Osgood was popularly perceived as Detroit's perennial question mark. And when the Wings went out in the first round in two of the past three playoff seasons, Osgood became a symbol of what had to change. So Detroit tapped its bottomless budget well, brought in Dominik Hasek, and Ozzie was history.

At least he knew the score.

"I knew I was out right away when they made that trade (for Hasek)," Osgood said. "I'd known (Detroit GM) Ken Holland since I was 15, so I wasn't left in the dark.

	“	I think a player comes to a crossroad where he knows it's time to move on. I had eight great years there, so I can't complain or be upset. I just came to a point where I had to move on and go someplace else. ”
		— Chris Osgood

"I think a player comes to a crossroad where he knows it's time to move on. I had eight great years there, so I can't complain or be upset. I just came to a point where I had to move on and go someplace else. It'll feel different when I go out there Friday, but it's something I can look forward to. I'll approach it as a chance to have some fun, and once it's over -- I can move on. Close that page."

What he wants now is for the fans to turn it, too. When the puck drops at The Joe, Osgood says that wish will be granted.

"I think some people in Detroit look at me as if I were still a Red Wing, because I was there so long," he said. "But I think this game will offer me a little closure. And then I can move on and put my focus on what we're doing here with the Islanders rather than having to keep talking about me and Detroit."

It didn't figure that the network nerds had this game highlighted at their summer scheduling sessions. But a month ago, about the time Milbury decided Osgood would be a perfect fit on the Isle of Wrong, perhaps a few expatriated Islanders fans woke up to that realization.

But can it keep going?

"You always have to be cautious about good starts," Milbury said. "Now we have Detroit and Philadelphia in the next two nights, and we'll know how we stand."

You can't blame Milbury for being a tad reserved. Inwardly, he admits, his sense of joy at his team's October uprising is surpassed only by the size of his sigh of relief. But Milbury's record on the Island has been profoundly poor, and not just in the won-lost columns.

With two years of success in Boston as a head coach from 1989-91, Milbury became one of the first of Harry Sinden's embarrassing examples of impatient managers. But Milbury went on to prove his prowess before the cameras. He's a superb hockey analyst, and also just another ex-player and coach who never lost the craving to be closer to the action.

Hired as coach of the slipping Islanders in 1995, Milbury was expected to end the Isles' streak of playoff misses at one. He was such an instant smash, Milbury was tapped to replace Don Maloney as GM before his first season as coach was over. But the team fell short of the playoffs for a second straight year ... and little did Milbury know that the early springs would continue to pile up.

The bogey Islanders fans endlessly endure is at eight straight springs and counting, with Milbury surviving more than a couple of ownership scandals and sales, wholesale roster selloffs, brutal public fights with agents and holdout players, and the hiring and firing of five coaches -- including Milbury himself.

It's been a career sentence that finally seemed at an end last season. With new owners Charles Wang and Sanjay Kumar in place, the Milbury who had auctioned off players like Zigmund Palffy, Wade Redden, Scott Lachance, Trevor Linden, Bryan Berard, Bryan McCabe and Todd Bertuzzi without much remuneration was finally getting the financial backing he'd longed for.

And still his Islanders stunk.

So it seemed clear to Milbury that a management change was at hand. Then before a mid-winter game with the Flyers, the enthusiastic, offbeat Wang went on an Islanders television pregame show and declared what the team's beat writers had already known, but probably were slow to accept. Of course Milbury was coming back, Wang said. And not only that, but "we're building our team around him."

	“	Last year, we spent more money and things still didn't work out for us. And for him to step up and really take a bullet for me, that was just very humbling for me. I owe him a debt of gratitude for it. ”
		— Isles GM Mike Milbury on owner Charles Wang's public endorsement

"It was a breath of fresh air when he said that," Milbury said. "I don't remember hearing that from anyone else over the years, from owners who tripped over their own egos. But last year, we spent more money and things still didn't work out for us. And for him to step up and really take a bullet for me, that was just very humbling for me. I owe him a debt of gratitude for it."

With this ninth life in his seventh year on the Island, Milbury seems determined to make it work. His work at the draft was impeccable; his move to acquire Osgood also looks like a masterstroke.

"Osgood brings a stability to our team that we didn't have before, and a sense of leadership, too," Milbury said. "I think a lot of our new guys have come in feeling they have something to prove. With Michael Peca, he's a proven player, but he wants to prove something other than just what you can see in the stats. With Alexei Yashin, he wants to prove that he can compete at a level where he'd be carrying a team to the playoffs and beyond.

"And with Osgood, he's been scorned in Detroit. But that's no shame for a guy who's been scorned for one of the best goalies, if not THE best goalie in the game."

All three have had their share of stardom and success, and more than a few brushes with controversy with their old teams. Milbury didn't only move to bring in three top talents -- he brought in a collective hunger with them. Then he brought in a young coach in Peter Laviolette, who may only have three minor-league seasons on his head coaching resume, but also is winning raves from his players.

"He's a real good motivator and a great speaker," Osgood said of Laviolette. "He's always stressing the positive and it's great to play for a coach like that. But we have a lot of guys who have come in here to prove something and work together for it. A lot of guys from other teams who have come here and are expected to be leaders."

One of them has gone home to The Joe to face his past one last time, and get on with life. Chris Osgood doesn't need to dwell on championship memories any longer since the future -- and the present -- looks so bright and feels so right.

Rob Parent of the Delaware County (Pa.) Times is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.