"Andrew brings a lot of different things to our club," Snow said. "[He's] a very high-character guy. We knew that when we signed him. A lot of people don't know last year, I don't think he had many goals around Christmas and then he turned it on. But Andrew Ladd isn't defined as a hockey player by scoring goals; it's a lot of different things he does, whether it's [being tough] to play against, his leadership … he's a winner. Andrew's a big part of our club. It's the reason why we signed him, because of all those positive attributes that he brings to the club."
Prior to the start of the regular season, Snow opted to keep three goaltenders on the 23-man roster rather than right wing PA Parenteau, who had signed a one-year contract on July 2. Parenteau, who had 120 points playing alongside Tavares from 2010-12, was claimed off waivers by the New Jersey Devils and has five goals and two assists in 16 games. Tavares is the only player on the Islanders roster with five goals.
Meanwhile, No. 3 goalie J-F Berube has yet to play a game this season. Jaroslav Halak will make his seventh straight start Friday, with Thomas Greiss as his backup.
"I wouldn't want to be in that situation," Snow, a former goaltender, said of Berube. "It stinks. I think he's handling it like a professional. You rewind the last year so start the season [against] Chicago home-and-home, [Halak] was injured. We picked up J-F off waivers, and thank goodness we did. There were times during the season where we had three goalies on our roster, [but] two were healthy. We've got three good goalies. It's one of the strengths of our organization; we've got good goaltending in Bridgeport, we have a couple of great goaltenders in the pipeline that are playing in other places. It's a strength of our organization. I get [the frustration], but it's a 23-man roster. We'll carry as many goalies as we see fit.
"And by the way, the CBA says a player is an unrestricted free agent at a certain time. It is what it is."
For now, Snow's main concern is getting the Islanders back on track. The game Friday is the first of 66 remaining, and the Islanders are seven points in back of the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the East.
"I understand the frustration of our fans," Snow said. "It's the same passionate fan base that blew the roof off the Coliseum in the Pittsburgh series [in 2013], the Washington series (in 2015), the last year of the Coliseum, and they blew the roof off the Barclays Center last year. We were fortunate enough to get to the second round.
"It's a passionate fan base; we're in New York. Of course, we're going to hear it when we do well and we're going to hear it when we don't do so well. It's what we signed up for. I can appreciate the passion. Quite frankly, it's one of the best parts of being a general manager of a New York-based team, is you've got the most passionate fan base in the world."
