Garth Snow's Interview on Msg+

New York Islander Fan Central | 1/14/2009 10:42:00 AM |
























General manager Garth Snow was interviewed by Billy Jaffe prior to last night's game which I recorded.

To this point Msg did not release this for viewing and it may not be released on ITV for a while (if at all) so I thought I would provide somewhat of a summary and quote directly what I thought was the key question.

If the interview is posted at a future date I will put it on the blog sidebar.

To summarize briefly General Manager Garth Snow praised his prospects and felt they have exceeded expectations to this point but did not go into much detail about any one player specifically. He also praised Mark Streit and Doug Weight for what they have done with the emphasis on Streit's defensive play. The gm discussed Rick DiPietro's health and said even though he has been cleared to play he has been held back for his best interest long-term where in the past he may have played.

The general manager made it clear in his first comment on DiPietro he is not a doctor.

The key part for me was when the coaches job performance was brought up and I wanted to put his answer in quotes for our blog readers at this time.

How satisfied have you been with your rookie coach Scott Gordon and his performance this year?

" He's done a great job, especially with our younger players, he deserves a lot of the credit for that as well as our veterans in the lockeroom have helped the Kyle Okposo's the Josh Bailey's & Frans Nielsen's right on down the line. Our younger players adapt to the NHL. When we first hired Scott to be the coach of this organization the mindset was to bring in a coach who's gonna to help develop our younger players. "


NYI Fan Central Comments:

Billy Jaffe for his part did not press the gm on the coaches system allowing more shots/defensive breakdowns or Brendan Witt's earlier comments and had a few too many softballs here (he pressed the gm to explain about DiPietro for the fans benefit) as I heard too much about silver linings when going into this season the gm said if the young players continue to progress as they did at the end of last year they would be fine in terms of scoring lost.

This was not the case with injuries being a key factor to Nielsen, Okposo and Comeau winding up in Bridgeport which absolutely seemed a mistake by Scott Gordon. I have seen virtually nothing different than I saw a year ago from Comeau.

Jeff Tambellini's two recent goals notwithstanding has been a failure given his age, fair or not some of this has to go on the coach along with Scott Gordon earlier shifting Kyle Okposo to left wing which he was honest enough to admit may have been a mistake.

I would speculate unless something changes Scott Gordon will return as head coach if that's what he wants.






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