He turned Reinhart and strome into Barzal, Beauvillier, and Eberle. That’s more value for those picks than had most players taken at those spots. Snow is better than most people give him credit for.
Exactly. All GMs make mistakes, but some of them are very good at maneuvering their teams out of it. Garth Snow has got to be one of the best at doing that. Making lemonade out of lemons. Yes, it does help that he had a trade partner in Chiarelli. He doesn't have a crystal ball to figure out which draft picks will pan out- not many do, but through it all he's found too many diamonds in the rough ie. Lee, Hamonic, Nelson, or resurrected certain player's careers that other teams simply rejected ie. Grabner, Mark Streit, Moulson, Parenteau, Hickey etc. In 2007 he made it very clear that his goal was to build the team through the draft.
https://thehockeywriters.com/garth-snow-the-nhls-most-underrated-gm/. If you look at today's team, this is exactly the product of his vision. The vision was a solid one and his not only made this franchise stronger in the present, but all signs point to the Islanders being in a strong place for many years to come. They have two first round picks in a strong NHL draft next year alone plus a plethora of young players being developed in the minors as we speak. Meanwhile he has acquired and developed the core of this team with patient diligence through the draft, Lee, Bailey, Tavares, Barzal, Ho-Sang, Nelson, Beauvillier, Cizikas, Pulock, Pelech, De Haan, Mayfield- and before them Nilsson and Martin- those are all homegrown talents folks. Those were all players who were key to Snow's vision. To think the condition of this club 10 years ago, we had nothing, no future, no talent in the minors, no star players wanting to play here and in just one decade Snow has completely turned this franchise around and stabilized it for the long term. I told our fans over he summer that our offense will one of the best Islander's offenses we had seen in decades- just by looking at the quality of prospects Snow was injecting into the line-up. You would have to be blind not to see it, but it was clear this was going to be another break out year for the Islanders and one that was building on their previous successes over the past 5 years or so, but certain members of every fanbase like to find the absolute worse in their teams and often times they are the ones who shout the loudest on these boards. If you like anything about today's Islanders you have to give Garth Snow credit for sticking to his guns.
That article I quoted above was from 2013 and it is still clear to me that he continues to be one of the most underrated GMS in the league.
