Undrafted, he signed with the New York Islanders, who were looking to add toughness and muscle to their roster, on March 2, 1987. Vukota worked his way up through their system and found himself skating on NHL ice by the end of the 1987–88 season, also scoring his first goal. Also, perhaps more significantly, he registered 82 penalty minutes in 17 games on the way to becoming his team\'s top enforcer. Over the next decade, Vukota forged a reputation as a tough scrapper and punishing forechecker who could occasionally pop in a goal. He was suspended several times by the league for on ice behaviors, and this added to his growing tough-guy reputation. He went on to become the Islanders\' career penalty minutes leader (1,879), but his one-dimensional style resulted in a demotion to the Utah Grizzlies of the IHL in 1996–97. He split the 1997–98 season between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens in what was his last year in the NHL, surpassing 2,000 career penalty minutes, and then played two more seasons with the Grizzlies in the IHL before retiring.\n', '

Despite not being a major goal scorer, with only 17 career goals across 575 NHL matches, he did score a hat trick against the Washington Capitals, in a 5-3 Islanders win at the Capital Centre on October 20, 1989.\n', '

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