Garth Snow: Above Average GM?

[joemon999]

https://nypost.com/2020/08/30/islanders-nhl-playoff-run-sparked-by-garth-snow-acquisitions/

This is a good article that summarizes most of the players Garth Snow acquired during his time on the Island and how they are still on the team. The entire NY Roster is made up of Snow draft picks and trades outside of Andy Green, Pageau, and Komarov.

Draft Picks:
Josh Bailey: 9th Overall in 2008 Draft (Longest tenured Islander)
Mat Barzal: 16th Overall in 2015 Draft (Acquired pick from trading Griffin Reinhart to EDM)
Anthony Beauvillier: 28th Overall in 2015 Draft (Acquired pick from Tampa in exchange for Oilers pick and 2nd round pick)
Brock Nelson: 30th Overall in 2010 Draft
Adam Pelech: 65th Overall in 2012 Draft (Currently Islanders best dman)
Ryan Pulock: 15th Overall in 2013 Draft
Scott Mayfield: 34th Overall in 2011 Draft
Devon Toews: 108th Overall in 2014 Draft (Acquired pick from Flyers in exchange for Mark Streit's UFA rights)
Anders Lee: 151st Overall in 2009 Draft (Currently Islanders Captain)
Casey Cizikas: 92nd Overall in 2009 Draft (Arguably best 4th line center in the league)
Matt Martin: 148th Overall in 2008 Draft

Trades:
- Nick Leddy for Kent Simpson, T.J. Brennan, Ville Pokka, and Anders Nilsson in 2014
- Johnny Boychuck for 2015 2nd round pick, 2016 2nd round pick, 2015 conditional 3rd round pick
- Oilers 2015 1st round pick (Barzal) and 2015 2nd round pick (used to exchange picks with Tampa to draft Anthony Beauvillier) for Griffin Reinhart
- Jordan Eberle for Ryan Strome
- 2018 1st round pick (Noah Dobson), 2018 2nd round pick (Ruslan Iskhakov), and 2019 conditional 2nd round pick (Samuel Bolduc) for Travis Hamonic
- Cal Clutterbuck and 2013 3rd round pick for Nino Niederreiter

When it comes to team/roster construction, Snow obviously knew what he was doing. He drafted and traded for all the major pieces that are currently carrying this Islanders team deep into the playoffs. Snow's biggest problem was always giving loyalty to low level coaches such as Scott Gordon, Doug Weight, and Jack Capuano. If Garth Snow decided to go after a legitimate coach halfway through the decade, I think you would have seen this Islanders team gone deep before when they still had Tavares. His inability to hire a good coach ultimately is what cost him his job.

Regardless, if the Islanders do some how pull it off and win the cup, I think Garth Snow needs to be looked at as an above average GM. Sure, he had a couple of boneheaded moves such as the Ladd signing and the Vanek trade. However, this is Garth Snow's team and the team he envisioned building during all those years in rebuild. Even though Lou helped put the final pieces together in terms of Green, Pageau, and Komarov, the Islanders wouldn't be where they are today if Snow wasn't GM before Lou.

What do you guys think? Do you think he's better than what most people give him credit for? I wouldn't be surprised if a rebuilding team in need of a GM reaches out to Snow. I think he could help out a lot of teams when it comes to building a roster.

 

[ElLeetch]

GMs don't usually do much of the work in drafting. And for having the job for almost a decade and a half, i'd expect to see more than 6 notable trades (a few of which were in moving high draft-pick players who were ruined by the Islanders).

The fact is, Snow has been mostly inactive throughout his tenure. Either because he was afraid of making a bad move so he made no move, or because he was under the thumb of the ownership group.

 

[majormajor]

If Garth Snow decided to go after a legitimate coach halfway through the decade, I think you would have seen this Islanders team gone deep before when they still had Tavares.

Halfway through the decade Barzal and Beauvillier were in juniors and the shutdown D corps of Pulock, Pelech, Toews, and Mayfield were all too green to make a difference. That's not to say that coaching wasn't also an issue, but GM tenures are often shorter than the time it takes for most of their draftees to reach their prime.

 

[RandV]

I always believed Snow was a good GM who gets an unfair bad rap. Maybe not fair to say but the Islanders aren't really on anyone's radar so it was easy to just caught up on the laughable situation where the organization fired their new GM a few months into the job and replace him with their backup goalie, and never look beyond that.

Eventually though you get to a point where you have to begin judging a manager on results, and after giving him an extended stay Snow wasn't able to deliver so there was nothing wrong with ownership moving on from him.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Ultimately a GM's job is to build a good team on the ice. That includes not only drafting good players, making good trades and signing good free agents, but also putting the right people in place throughout the organization to fully maximize those assets (ie. coaching, player development, etc.).

Whether or not Snow was good at one aspect or another of those things, the end result is his team saw limited success during his long tenure. So I'd say no, that doesn't make him above average as a GM.

 

[ScaredStreit]

Garth Snow was god awful. The Islanders had/have a scouting staff which is why they were able to hit so much on mid to late rounds. Snow routinely let free agents walk for nothing (and no I'm not talking about Tavares), handled assets poorly, and failed time and time again to bring in even a mediocre coach.

If Snow was still the GM we wouldn't have been a playoff team the last two seasons.

I knew the Koolaid ran deep on the Isles HF boards but wow this is too much.

 

[Pitaya]

The Islanders fans only credit Barry Trotz with their success - they try and pass Lou off as a good GM as well when hes only signed bad deals and traded away 1st rounders, meanwhile Snow's team drafted them all their talent.

Islanders fans have no identity right now as Tavares stripped them of it - so theyre clinging to the idea of having always been a contender and a coach unlocked that potential. Meanwhile their current GM ate up 24 mil in cap space and now they have ~8 to sign Barzal and four other roster players. With only Wilde and Wahsltrom of note in the prospect pool

Islanders may be having some success right now but it will be short lived once their cap hits them hard and they cant pay their youngsters, which include two 20+ATOI dmen and Beauvilier.

But good thing they locked up six guys over 28 to 5+ years! Lou is clearly the superior GM today to Garth Snow, duh. Lou's time passed him a long while ago

 

[Mandar]

Not to rain on this parade, but how can you be an above average GM when your teams made it past the first round once during your regime....(when they actually made the playoffs....not a common occurrence)?

Why not wait to see if they advance anywhere before anointing Snow as anything but a miserable failure?

 

[joemon999]

Not to rain on this parade, but how can you be an above average GM when your teams made it past the first round once during your regime....(when they actually made the playoffs....not a common occurrence)?

Why not wait to see if they advance anywhere before anointing Snow as anything but a miserable failure?

Because Islanders are about to go to the ECF with his roster...

 

[Del Preston]

He took Peter Chiarelli to the woodshed more than any other GM did. Three of the Isles' top-six forwards are the result of Pistol Pete's generational stupidity.

 

[GrandmaSlices51631]

The Islanders fans only credit Barry Trotz with their success - they try and pass Lou off as a good GM as well when hes only signed bad deals and traded away 1st rounders, meanwhile Snow's team drafted them all their talent.

Islanders fans have no identity right now as Tavares stripped them of it - so theyre clinging to the idea of having always been a contender and a coach unlocked that potential. Meanwhile their current GM ate up 24 mil in cap space and now they have ~8 to sign Barzal and four other roster players. With only Wilde and Wahsltrom of note in the prospect pool

Islanders may be having some success right now but it will be short lived once their cap hits them hard and they cant pay their youngsters, which include two 20+ATOI dmen and Beauvilier.

But good thing they locked up six guys over 28 to 5+ years! Lou is clearly the superior GM today to Garth Snow, duh. Lou's time passed him a long while ago

This is so far from reality. Lou traded for and signed Pageau who has been a key cog during this run. Isles fanbase has probably the strongest identity they've had with a new arena under construction and a strong young core. Sounds like someone pissed in your cereal but please take this nonsense elsewhere.

 

[boredmale]

One thing with Snow is it's hard to rate him given how he had an owner who basically made his #1 job be coming up with the cheapest roster money could buy. In that regard he succeeded because int he 2013 CBA they came up with a few rules that clearly went out of their way to stop some tricks Snow used to get over the cap min.

Beyond that I am not sure what was up with the coaching situation. It was easy to blame Wanger for this for the first 7-8 years of his tenure but it did seem like Wang did open up the checkbook(or did he?) around 2015ish yet Snow continued to hire lesser than average coaches.

As somebody else pointed out Snow was terrible at dumping players at the trade deadline and not getting anything of value fort them(although this may be the fault of the cheapness of ownership not allowing him to trade a guy since they wouldn't be cap compliant)

In terms of draft I do think Snow had some say in Islanders drafting, it seemed for the most part they put a high importance on character(yes I know Ho Sang and Kabanov were exceptions to that rule) which is paying off now since you have the perfect coach to harness that. That being said he made a few bad picks in the top 5 to counter some of his later round gems

 

[Isles Junkie]

Snow was a lot better of a GM than he ever got credit for. That doesn't make him a good GM though. He deserves a lot of credit for hiring the right guys to run their drafts, and he also deserves a lot of blame for the people who developed many of their busts. He also deserves all the blame for sticking with Weight & Capuano who just aren't NHL caliber. I firmly believe the NYI would have had a lot more playoff appearances with just a league average coach during Snow's tenure.

 

[MattMartin]

The Islanders fans only credit Barry Trotz with their success - they try and pass Lou off as a good GM as well when hes only signed bad deals and traded away 1st rounders, meanwhile Snow's team drafted them all their talent.

Islanders fans have no identity right now as Tavares stripped them of it - so theyre clinging to the idea of having always been a contender and a coach unlocked that potential. Meanwhile their current GM ate up 24 mil in cap space and now they have ~8 to sign Barzal and four other roster players. With only Wilde and Wahsltrom of note in the prospect pool

Islanders may be having some success right now but it will be short lived once their cap hits them hard and they cant pay their youngsters, which include two 20+ATOI dmen and Beauvilier.

But good thing they locked up six guys over 28 to 5+ years! Lou is clearly the superior GM today to Garth Snow, duh. Lou's time passed him a long while ago

Woof, some serious salt in this post.

Barzal? Lee? Pageau? Beauviller? Nelson? the 4th line? Really good D and 1 of the best Goalie prospects in the world just signing? Yes, we have no identity

 

[Strait2thecup]

The Islanders fans only credit Barry Trotz with their success - they try and pass Lou off as a good GM as well when hes only signed bad deals and traded away 1st rounders, meanwhile Snow's team drafted them all their talent.

Islanders fans have no identity right now as Tavares stripped them of it - so theyre clinging to the idea of having always been a contender and a coach unlocked that potential. Meanwhile their current GM ate up 24 mil in cap space and now they have ~8 to sign Barzal and four other roster players. With only Wilde and Wahsltrom of note in the prospect pool

Islanders may be having some success right now but it will be short lived once their cap hits them hard and they cant pay their youngsters, which include two 20+ATOI dmen and Beauvilier.

But good thing they locked up six guys over 28 to 5+ years! Lou is clearly the superior GM today to Garth Snow, duh. Lou's time passed him a long while ago

komorav Martin pageau and Andy Greene have all had pretty pretty good playoffs for themselves

 

[lawrence]

I was surprised he was hired for the job back in 2007? he went from being their back up goalie to GM? what did he do to convince Charles Wang he's a GM Material person?

 

[boredmale]

I was surprised he was hired for the job back in 2007? he went from being their back up goalie to GM? what did he do to convince Charles Wang he's a GM Material person?

It might have been his business degree or could have been

 

[Lame Lambert]

No. f*** Garth Snow.

 

[SI90]

Lou knows how Run run a god damn organization from top to bottom. He runs a tight ship and has the respect of everyone. Garth doesn’t get you Barry Trotz.

 

[SRBisles]

Nope. Made some good trades, signed a few good deals, but the Islanders were never going anywhere as long as he was at the helm. Zero accountability throughout the organization, kept Fred Flinstone for ages instead of going after a real coach, and failed to make key moves when the team needed it most.

 

[Del Preston]

Is Capuano still living in Garth's basement?

 

[RMimagery]

The Islanders fans only credit Barry Trotz with their success - they try and pass Lou off as a good GM as well when hes only signed bad deals and traded away 1st rounders, meanwhile Snow's team drafted them all their talent.

Islanders fans have no identity right now as Tavares stripped them of it - so theyre clinging to the idea of having always been a contender and a coach unlocked that potential. Meanwhile their current GM ate up 24 mil in cap space and now they have ~8 to sign Barzal and four other roster players. With only Wilde and Wahsltrom of note in the prospect pool

Islanders may be having some success right now but it will be short lived once their cap hits them hard and they cant pay their youngsters, which include two 20+ATOI dmen and Beauvilier.

But good thing they locked up six guys over 28 to 5+ years! Lou is clearly the superior GM today to Garth Snow, duh. Lou's time passed him a long while ago

This post is worse than the thread.

No identity? This team knows exactly who they are and how they need to play.

Strongest group of teammates I've seen in a long time anywhere.

Oh, you forgot about Dobson and Sorokin. And they have players that will be moved to make room.

Greene's $5M hit comes off (Thanks Andy you've been great) and they'll have close to $10M free to start with before addressing Brassard (likely gone) and Martin (was $2.5M, may be the end - or he comes back for less.)

Horrid observations and reeks of bitterness.

 

[brachyrynchos]

I always believed Snow was a good GM who gets an unfair bad rap. Maybe not fair to say but the Islanders aren't really on anyone's radar so it was easy to just caught up on the laughable situation where the organization fired their new GM a few months into the job and replace him with their backup goalie, and never look beyond that.

Eventually though you get to a point where you have to begin judging a manager on results, and after giving him an extended stay Snow wasn't able to deliver so there was nothing wrong with ownership moving on from him.

Yeah, I was pretty excited when the Isles had named Neil Smith GM and brought in LaFontaine as an advisor. It looked like things were going to start heading in the right direction. ~40 days later both had resigned. Smith cited lack of control in his position and something along the lines of 'too many people making decisions and a lack of chain of command'.
As mentioned, Snow was well educated and was a great teammate in Philly and Long Island...one of the problems was that he didn't have enough or any experience. Add in arena issues and salary restrictions which led to the Isles not being a destination for free agents which I think made things worse. His drafting wasn't bad nor were some of his trades but he failed to take the team to the next level whether it was not getting better coaches or better players to build around Tavares. At least now the new arena is on it's way and ownership is committed to the team. Having Lou and bringing on Trotz has really helped turn things around setting the team in the right direction. It's night and day from what it was.

 

[abo9]

Idk about Snow himself - he's had nothing to show for for the longest time, though I give him the benefit of the doubt given runours of meddling owners and "team cap". To me, it always seemed like the Is'anders had troubles developing their picks until this group.

but Lou... is riding a similar wave of success he did with the Leafs. Come on a team with a solid young core, hire an experienced coach, and profit from being a "miraculous worker". He's gonna resign soon before difficult decisions arise and the results start to plummet

 

[IslesBro715]

I didn't think Snow was a bad GM. He got a lot of unnecessary flack for some of his moves. Drafting was pretty good under him and he signed some pretty good contracts. Where he really messed up was 1. his inability to recognize the coaching staff was garbage 2. He never was able to make move that would really make us contenders. When it seemed like we were getting ready to take the next step, he would end up sitting on his hands.