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Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Holy Hockey -- first Tavares Gets THN support and now so does Garth Snow

Earlier today, I noted that John Tavares is running #1 in a TSN Puck Poll: If you could have only one, would you want Tavares, Hall, Seguin or Nugent-Hopkins?

This afternoon, THN Web Editor Rory Boylen has a piece in The Hockey News online where he notes four GMs who he thinks "for the most part, get a rough ride when they don't really deserve it."

Glen Sather, Brian Burke and Jay Feaster, all long-time respected hockey men are the first three.

The fourth is Garth Snow.

Writes Boylen:

"Garth Snow, NYI – How's this for contradiction? On one hand, people berate Burke for not building through the draft with patience. On the other, Snow gets berated for not getting immediate results for building through the draft.

Again it's the Pittsburgh/Chicago scenario that has many expecting too much, too soon. If one thing is for sure, Snow hasn't greatly deviated from this gradual approach to a climb back to relevancy and at some point it might pay off. The acquisitions of Evgeni Nabokov and Brian Rolston run counter to that plan, but they were low-risk gambles on players the team hoped would give its youngsters a push.

The Islanders haven't been a big player in unrestricted free agency, but that's partly because of ownership and also because Snow is beginning to get results. One or two UFA signings wouldn't have been enough to get this team over the hump and may have hurt more than helped (look at the Sabres). The Islanders are still rather brutal, but the fact players such as John Tavares are finding their footing is a promising development."

Complete piece is here: http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/44649-Boylen-Four-GMs-given-an-unnecessarily-hard-time.html

What's next -- ESPN's Neil Greenberg saying something positive about Mr. Marginal.  Actually, yes -- he tweeted a few minutes ago:  "I will have some Islander love in tomorrow's ESPN post. ... Alert Howie!"    -- oh, and I just did.
 
Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since January 21, 1982. Visit my blog: NYISkinny.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick

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