He didn't do that though. His team was perennial lottery dwellers because he and the franchise were a mess. At the very least, Lou added order, structure and expectations. A team under Snow would never have achieved what the 2 ECF teams did.
Yet again every transaction Snow did to build his roster led to those very ECFs and the transactions Lou did led to the very debacle you see before your own very eyes. Where’s that order, structure, and expectations now? It is the very same Lou Lamiorello at the helm right now is it not?
Look at the roster Snow inherited and look at the roster Lou inherited. One took a horrible roster and slowly built a solid core through the draft. Barzal, Nelson, Pulock, Pelech, Lee, Cizikas, Bailey, Toews, Bailey, Tavares, Martin, Mayfield, heck he even acquired for us exclusive rights to Sorokin. Then look at the responsible trades he made to acquire Boychuk, Leddy, Clutterbuck and Eberle to support that draft born line up. He didn’t have to give up first round draft picks left and right to accomplish this.
What did Lou do. Wahlstrom? Pageau? Fasching? Engvall? Is Dobson really the future of this team’s defense? Where are our prospects? What happened to all our picks? What happened to our cap space? If it wasn’t for the hockey gods providing for us Eiserman and possibly Tsyplakov the future would appear very bleak as there is no future core developing in our prospect camp. Not at least like the one Snow built for us with many of that core amazingly still playing for us.
The team is a disaster. Lou took a relatively strong roster weakened it, allowed it to age, took away its skaters, gave away all our first round picks, emptied up our prospect cupboards, and to top it off ensured the team will suck for ages by signing ridiculously long contracts one with a player making 12 million playing for our AHL club.
You can’t escape this truth. Snow built the ECF teams. Lou dissected those teams and gave you the team you see before you that can’t even score a friggin goal. How can anyone not see that?
Again hate Snow all you want and I can understand the emotions involved but he did a better job constructing a roster than Lou has both in talent and resource management. The more Lou screwed around with the roster the worse it got. This is undeniable. Was all of this really worth the last 3 seasons? The roster Snow built for us at least made the conference finals but what has Lou’s tinkering got us. First round after first round after first round playoff blow outs.
Many here now want Lou to blow the team up acquire high draft picks in the process and want the team to be perennial lottery pickers in the hopes of acquiring high level talent and they use former bottom dwellers such as the Pens, Oilers, Caps as examples but when our former GM put the franchise in such a position they saw it as a problem and erected the billboards. Make up your minds.
If we allow Lou to rebuild this team from scratch has he given anyone reason to believe that he won’t completely screw it up? How far are we before we hear those infamous words, “this team needs a new voice”?