Someone had to make this thread.
He was the last general manager we had who seemed genuinely invested in this team's direction and wellbeing unlike the donkeys that came after who were either stealing paychecks or outright trying to sabotage the team's future. He didn't always make the right moves but every year you could tell he had a plan/vision for the team, identified the players to execute that vision, then went out and did what it took to get them. Yeah he sometimes overpaid for a Souray or Penner, but other times he stole players like Pronger peanuts and just overall was better at acquiring actual good hockey players.
Notable players brought in by Lowe who made noticeable positive impact on the copper and blue at some point in time:
-C: Horcoff, Reasoner, York, Stoll, Brodziak, Nedved, Peca, Cogliano, Sykora, Gagner
-W: Carter, Hemsky, Dvorak, Torres, Stortini, Samsonov, Penner, Glencross, Eberle
-D: Brewer, Ferguson, MAB, Staios, Greene, Gilbert, Pronger, Tarnstrom, Spacek, Petry, Smid, Tjarnqvist, Hejda, Grebeshkov, Pitkanen, Souray, Visnovsky
-G: Conklin, Dubnyk, Roloson, Garon
The gap between him and the 4 mongrels who came after him is bigger than the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda.
This was the last GM you could tell actually cared about being an Oiler and wanted the team to succeed. We shouldn't have memed him for 6 Rings. I'll take 6 Rings over the likes of Tambo/Chia/Holland every day.