New York Islanders You Know Nothing Garth Snow

The New York Islanders began the 2016-2017 season with three goalies. It’s often been said that if you have three goalies, you don’t have any.

Free Agency

Much has been made of New York Islanders GM Garth Snow’s offseason. Even though he lost Frans Nielsen and Kyle Okposo he made a signing that should have help fill that scoring void. And that appears to have been the signing of P.A. Parenteau. Unfortunately, Snow made the decision to waive him before the regular season started.

Parenteau has 12 goals and 7 assists for 19 points on the year for the New Jersey Devils who claimed him off waivers. The other offseason acquisitions of Andrew Ladd and Jason Chimera have produced 12 and 16 points respectively. To date, Parenteau would be the Islanders third highest goal scorer for the Isles.

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Three Goalie-Tandem

Snow waived Parenteau because he didn’t want to lose third string goaltender Jean-Francois Berube.

Snow figured the best option going into the season was running with a three-goalie system, and letting go of a veteran winger who has experience playing with John Tavares.

Berube is set to be a restricted free agent, RFA, after this season. That is of course if Berube can play in at least 28 games this season.

We just hit the halfway point of the Islander’s season, and Berube has played in a whopping five total games this season. It doesn’t take a math whiz to figure out that he’s going to need to play much more in the second half to become an RFA.

More on the Islanders: Jack Capuano is Fired

Sticking with the hot hand

The Isles just played three games in four nights. Berube seemed prime to start Saturday in Carolina after Thomas Greiss started Friday in Florida. Jack Capuano decided he wanted to stick with the hot hand and Greiss started both games.

In fact, since Jaroslav Halak was sent to Bridgeport on December 31, Greiss has started all seven games. The only action Berube has seen was in relief of Greiss in Carolina. Perhaps Capuano didn’t see what Snow does in Berube, but it’s clear this entire situation has been mishandled.

Next: Islanders Going With Greiss Again

As a former goalie, you would hope Snow’s specialty would be goaltending. Unfortunately, we have seen he has been incompetent in the handling of Halak, Greiss, and Berube. Now we just need to hope he didn’t do too much damage to the Islanders.