Changing Of Guard For Islanders

Its been a long time coming for Islanders fans but the impossible has finally happened. Garth Snow has been relieved of his duties as General manager and Doug Weight has been relieved as Coach. Both men will stay with the organization, but their new roles have been undefined as of now. Lou Lamoriello will take over as General Manager and a new search has begun for the teams next head coach. The explination was made by Lamoriello this afternoon is as follows:

"We've had meetings and conversations certainly throughout the past two weeks since I've been here, it is my opinion at this point that there is a coaching change that's needed and there's new voices needed in different areas, and because of that the change is made."

So what does this mean now for the Islanders?

It's something that's been a long time coming, at least as far as Snow goes. The only reason he was even hired back in 2006, at least I feel, is that he was the only one dumb enough to hire Rick DiPietro to the 15 year contract. The team had a proven GM in Neil Smith running the ship for 40 days, but Smith didn't want to sign Ricky to that long a deal, Wang fired him and brought in Snow. At least that's how I read the whole situation. They've made the playoffs four times in that time span and won one series, beating the Panthers. The last two years have been rough for the Islanders, missing the playoffs in both seasons.

Last season was a big step backwards for the Isles, as they went 35-37-10 and finishing 17 points behind the New Jersey Devils for the second wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference. A lot of the blame should fall on upper management I feel, for not getting the right levels of talent in here to help this team out. Now don't get me wrong, Snow has made a couple of sound moves. Bringing in Jaroslav Halak, Johnny Boychuck and Nick Leddy a few years ago was a smart move. So was fleecing the Oilers in the deal that landed Matthew Barazl in a deal that sent Griffin Reinhart to Edmonton for the 15th pick, which was used to nab Barzal.

Other then that, Snow hasn't done much to really improve the team. He let Frans Nielsen walk, same thing with Kyle Okposo. He made Nielsen a low ball offer before he signed with Detroit, and didn't even bother to offer Okposo a contract at all before he signed with Buffalo. He bumbled the whole trade with matt Moulson to buffalo for Thomas Vanek, then later traded Vanek away in another deal later in that season. He hasn't really found the right mix on offense to build around his best player in John Tavares. Sure, getting Barzal was a steal and Josh Bailey has really developed into his own as of late, and has a new contract in his back pocket. At the same time, they still haven't been able to get John Tavares signed. So you mean to tell me you can get a contract done with Josh Bailey, who's a solid hockey player, but you running the very high risk of losing your franchise player in Tavares to free agency?

Yeah, that's not good. That's possibly why, among other reasons, why Garth was relieved of his duties as General Manager. As for Doug Weight, I can't really blame him for what he did as coach. I mean he can only do so much with what he was given on the ice. During his time as the Isles bench boss, in 122 games coached, he finished with a record of 59-49-14. The first go around., he got the Islanders to within a point of the playoffs before falling just short. Last year, well didn't go so hot. He was a solid leader behind the bench for this team but you kind of had to figure there was going to be a change of the guard if the GM was let go.