New York Islanders GM Garth Snow Ain’t Going Nowhere Yet

The New York Islanders have lost four straight, in some pretty embarrassing fashion. And talk has now moved to the amount of leash being given to GM Garth Snow. But there’s no reason to think that he’s here for the year, at least.

Over the last four games, the New York Islanders have looked dreadful. In that span, they’ve lost four in a row by a combined score of 21 to eight. It’s the worst skid this season and has put them outside of a playoff position as the half-way mark of the season approaches.

Naturally, fans are calling for Garth Snow’s job. To be fair, they’ve been calling for his job all year. But with the losing streak, the rhetoric has ramped up.

After over eleven years in the job as New York Islanders GM, Garth Snow hasn’t been able to manage much success. In those eleven seasons, the Isles have four playoff appearances and just a single series win. It’s not a glowing resume. That’s a 40% playoff appearance rate and 20% series win ratio once they get there. In case that wasn’t obvious enough, that’s bad. Real bad.

But regardless, Garth Snow won’t be going anywhere this season.

He Isn’t Moving

On this day last season the New York Islanders had a 15-21-6 record for 36 points. They sat last in the Eastern Conference and were nine points out of a wild-card spot held by the Philadelphia Flyers. Just a two weeks later, Jack Capuano would be fired and the Islanders would go on to a 24-12-4 record over the remaining 40 games.

More from Eyes On Isles

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• Islanders: Semyon Varlamov Deserves Benefit of the Doubt
• Islanders Ilya Sorokin becoming number one goalie
• Islanders Zach Parise Was Quiet in Return to Minnesota

With last season’s come from behind run to miss the post-season by a single point the New York Islanders ownership won’t rush to get Garth out the door. Scott Malkin and John Ledecky don’t seem like the reactionists type of owners.

Where things get a little dicey for a prediction like this is that Garth no longer has the scapegoat to point to like Jack Capuano. Unlike last season, Garth doesn’t have a guy behind the bench who’s been there almost as long as he has. Doug Weight hasn’t yet coached a full NHL season to date. Tonight’s game will mark his 82nd.

Should Garth fail to make the playoffs yet again, then ownership will be forced to do something. And who says that Garth gets the axe even then? They might just hire that President of Hockey Operations they’ve been looking to add for some time.

But they won’t budge before that. Not until the New York Islanders are officially eliminated from the playoffs. That won’t sit well with some fans and even some of my colleagues here at Eyes On Isles. Just earlier today, Matt O’Leary posted a piece about how Garth Snow needs to be fired.

Next: Early Look At 2018 Free Agency Targets

While I don’t disagree that Garth’s time is up, I don’t think it’s going to happen soon. This ownership group has shown us they aren’t the “shoot-from-the-hip” type. We’re going to have Garth Snow as GM till the end of the season at least.