New York Islanders: Let’s Hope Garth Snow Is Slow-Playing His Hand

New York Islanders GM Garth Snow made some controversial comments yesterday. Let’s hope Snow is just slow-playing his hand and actually has big plans for revamping the Islanders injury-depleted roster.

New York Islanders general manager Garth Snow riled up the Isles fanbase with his mind-boggling remarks yesterday. Snow proclaimed that he will be holding onto his two first-round draft picks and two second-round picks instead of trading them away for a “rental player”. He says “it doesn’t make sense”.

Well, now we know why Snow has kept his job for this long! It must be because of his ability to see the big picture and not worry about a quickly-closing window of opportunity for the Islanders to contend for a Stanley Cup. Shame on us for ever doubting him!

Could he really be this bad at his job? No, he can’t. Well, at least we hope not. My gut tells me this was all just a ploy for the media (and other NHL GMs) to increase the perceived value of those four high draft picks. Snow publicly declaring he would hold onto these picks after he’s surely been shopping them around the league, was only meant to stir the pot.

New York Islanders can’t let this window-of-opportunity close on them

What other reason could Garth Snow have for putting this out there publicly? Every team in the NHL knows the New York Islanders are in desperate need of a top-line defenseman.

The other GMs around the league are clearly using this as leverage against Snow in their trade negotiations. Snow had no choice but to come out and declare these picks off-limits.

More from Eyes On Isles

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

The 2018 NHL Entry Draft is projected to be a talent-rich class of players.  No matter who has the upper hand in any trade talks the Islanders may have had, the value of these picks will surely remain extremely high.

It’s one thing if Garth Snow is being held upside-down by his ankles and shaken down for these picks. If that’s the case I don’t blame him for coming out and claiming that he’s keeping them. Doing that will most certainly level out the playing field for Snow in his negotiations.

But it’s an entirely different matter if he’s just holding onto them for the sake of holding onto them as if he’s afraid of the backlash he’d receive if the player he acquires flops as an Islander. I know I’m probably giving Garth Snow more credit than he deserves and for being smarter than he probably is.

Next: Isles Inactivity Due To Crazy Trade Market

But if Garth Snow can pull off a significant trade for a couple of those picks and be revealed as being a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing for the past two months….it likely wouldn’t change a thing. He’d still lose his job as New York Islanders general manager this Summer.

LGI, folks.