Biggest mistake of Snow's tenure?

[Hip Of Rick*]

THe biggest mistake Snow has made is he has been unable to put together a team that could win a single playoff round. Milbury had the same problem. Its pro sports, winning is the whole point of it. Take winning away from the Yankees the last 20 years and those $3,000.00 dollar seats in the first few rows are selling for a $100.00.

Simple but true. Snow simply has not made enough moves in 6 YEARS to have many mistakes or hits. He has pretty much maintained the status quo with simply drafting players and picking up scrap heap guys

 

[19 in a row]

I believe Snow's failure with PA was not in that he did not resign him, it was in not getting SOMETHING for him at that year's trading deadline. Even a 2nd or a 3rd round pick would have been better than nothing. Even with him, we still finished with the 4th overall pick. How much lower would we really have finished, and would that have been a bad thing? Alex Galchenyuk in an Islanders uni next to JT sounds really good to me...better than Reinhart especially given we just drafted Pulock (and, yes, I recognize they are completely different d-men).

good point, I had actually forgotten about that.

 

[ScaredStreit]

you forgot to mention his -11 is the worst of the top 40 wingers, and he has virtually no physical presence.

you rank him 13th or 14th, based on a few selected statistical categories. i personally would rank him about 30-35th.

Boyes 35 points and -6 vs Parenteau 43 points and -11. not a huge difference IMO. how about salary difference? 4 mil vs 1 mil. BIG difference.

big mistake on Snow's part? i don't think so...

If you rank PAP 30-35th among wingers-you're ranking him as a 1st line winger. There are 60 1st line wingers in the NHL. Are you going to honestly say that Boyes will be a 1st line winger again next season on any other team? The fact that wont speaks volumes about what a hole that position is for the team.

PS-If you haven't noticed that Islanders have TONS of cap space. So much that they had to trade for TT if they wanted to make any trades. Salary (as far as salary cap space goes) is currently a non-issue for the Islanders.

Overpaying a 1st line winger (especially when it's one of your biggest holes) by even $1million per year is NOT a big deal. Especially when you have to trade for bogus contracts you know you don't have to pay in order to get to the salary floor for trades.

 

[Chapin Landvogt]

interesting. Could you elaborate on that?

Also, im not saying he cant ve a starter. Im saying his play over the last few seasons has not been NHL caliber and has not earned him a backup role. Is it not concerning Nabby couldnt catch a cold in the playoffs and Cappy still wouldnt go to Poulin? We watched a backup steal our series and you still want a question mark in net?

Well, that back-up was Vokoun, who has long been a starter. It wasn't some kid from the AHL just breaking in. Then again, look at what a Holtby did a couple of years ago before the Caps lost out to the Rangers.

I simply believe that Poulin has the technical prerequisites to be successful in this league and that a lot about gaining that success will focus around getting starts and ice time. When you have the physical and technical tools, confidence and routine then become the absolute keys to surviving and prospering at this level.

And seriously, having your drafted and fostered kid back-up your older proven veteran is not a new concept. Almost every team goes through that phase again and again and again. Few teams that have any belief in a goaltending prospect in their system will leave him down on the farm for more than two years before working him in more and more at the pro level, at least that's my impression.

Two things:
1) For Poulin, this will be a last chance with the Isles. He flounders, then the team brings in someone else right during season and one way or the other, he's got Nilsson breathing down his neck and he obviously knows that Nilsson has some goods. So he's got to show the Isles whether he plans on being successful here. This is something the team surely knows and takes into account in deciding if he's got the proper motivation going in.
2) I have stated many times that I am not a fan of drafting goalies. Don't mind it in later rounds, but generally don't like it for a number of reasons. To keep it short, you can go about getting a kid goalie per free agency or trade pretty much all the time. Why draft and then put alllll that effort into fostering a kid who likely won't really be good until his mid to late 20s anyways?

But that's just me and if you invest in them, you have to find out at some point what they can do here by playing here. There have been plenty of AHL goaltenders who tore apart that league and couldn't succeed in the NHL.

 

[Chapin Landvogt]

You say one was a first rounder, but neglect to count the first rounder we got in return.

The real cost was:

Chris Campoli
2nd round pick (37th overall),
Two 3rd round picks (62nd and 82nd overall)
And a 4th round pick (92nd overall)

A first rounder is a first rounder. It doesn't matter how you got it. You can't simply say "Well, we got it for that slouch Campoli, so it really isn't worth much".

It's all about how you use it.

Had we stayed at 28, maybe we'd have gotten a kid like Després? I just don't know if he's all that much different than Calvin even when de Haan is healthy?

Even if CdH never pans out, the draft is a total crapshoot. We've had a ton more hits than misses, so this seems silly to me for people to harp on. If you remember, CdH was (and still is) a good prospect.

Then nothing a team does in the draft can be deemed good or bad or well done or poorly done. It's all just luck and there's nothing more to it than throwing darts at the board.

A whole industry of scouts will disagree with you thoroughly.

As for de Haan's prospect status, I will choose to see him as a cherry on top should he make it. I've know too many people with those same shoulder problems who never again even withstand the physical grinding at the amateur level. I've met (and thus seen) de Haan myself and I can say that I have serious doubts that those shoulders are going to hold.

You're making assumptions. I'd say it's far more likely that CdH was very high on our scouts lists to the point where they found it necessary to move up to get him.

You're right. This is conjecture on my behalf. You can place whatever value on it you like.

I am convinced the team saw lots of de Haan while scouting Tavares and then targeted him once they knew they'd be picking 28th. As the draft approached, they prolly felt he'd not be there at 28, but knew they pretty much wanted him as their other 1st rounder. Once draft day came, they used wreckless abandon to get him.

So people think that kind of boldness is great, as I mentioned. Not my cup of tea though.

At the end of the day, no matter how much people might have liked him and his possibilities, I can't imagine many people in the know would have seen all the moves as having been wise in getting a first year underdeveloped OHLer.

Fact is, it hasn't paid off at all yet and we may never find out if it will.

I am rooting for Calvin.

 

[Quicklime]

I believe Snow's failure with PA was not in that he did not resign him, it was in not getting SOMETHING for him at that year's trading deadline. Even a 2nd or a 3rd round pick would have been better than nothing. Even with him, we still finished with the 4th overall pick. How much lower would we really have finished, and would that have been a bad thing? Alex Galchenyuk in an Islanders uni next to JT sounds really good to me...better than Reinhart especially given we just drafted Pulock (and, yes, I recognize they are completely different d-men).

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/archive/index.php/t-1118153.html

If this is true, it was simply too rich for Ottawa's blood.

 

[A Pointed Stick]

Then nothing a team does in the draft can be deemed good or bad or well done or poorly done. It's all just luck and there's nothing more to it than throwing darts at the board.

A whole industry of scouts will disagree with you thoroughly.

This is a discussion worthy of it's own thread IMO, and something we've all battled over since I have been here. Certainly it is not an exact science, but over the decades what once was more luck of the draw, or in the case of the Habs, extra special access to the Quebec Junior league for a long time, has now morphed into a far better scouted system, along with much, MUCH better developed prospects. I don't think anyone can say it is a 100% crap shoot in the top ten, and maybe even top 20 anymore, in an average draft. That some teams do well even through 3 to 5 rounds, consistently, makes me think that some teams have found a way to remove enough of the dart throwing to call it "Not a crap shoot."

Imagine if the kids all had one more year to develop like they used to? How much better would the ranking vs developed product translate?

It is less exact than the other major sports at this point, but as more teams make gains in scouting, and as prospects continue to improve thanks to improvements in the development leagues on building better players, I think scouting becomes more exact for the top rounds, or perhaps, less miss-hit.

Just throwing a thought in. In terms of Garth's tenure, scouting is becoming one of his major strong points. I'd say that building his GM spot in general has been a strong point when you considered he had to trim the competition (Milbury, Nolan), remove the fat (Yashin, DiPietro), convince Wang to give him some room to be a GM which I think has been a war of inches, cut the cronies from previous administrations (Jankowski, Botta - and I like Botta).

I see much here to like about Snow making his position. I don't doubt his desire to turn the club around, or his selfish interest in making it his. What more would you want from a GM in terms of their motivation? And all of this without making one real clown statement like another GM we all recall.

 

[JKP]

The draft is a crap shoot outside of the clearly generational players (even those like Daigle can be misses too).

All the scouting does is help you improve your odds in the crap shoot.

But it's still more about luck and as much about development.

Otherwise Lidstrom wouldn't have gone 53rd. Datsyuk went 171. Luck.

That's why I don't call any picks at the draft a big mistake. Too many variables affect the outcome.