It wasn’t quite as last-minute as most people thought, but the end result was the return Garth Snow got for the premier player on the rental trade market was underwhelming.
Announced after Wednesday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline had passed, but consummated almost an hour earlier, the Islanders general manager shipped Thomas Vanek to the Canadiens in exchange for 20-year-old prospect Sabastian Collberg and a conditional second-round pick. The condition is that if the Canadiens make the playoffs (they’re currently second in the conference) the Isles get the pick, and also send Montreal a 2015 fifth-rounder. If the Canadiens don’t make the playoffs, it was a one-for-one player swap.
“Have you ever seen Collberg play?” Snow asked The Post over the phone after he took a bevy of criticism from television commentators and from all corners of the Internet. “He has the chance to be a top-six forward in this league.”
Collberg was the Canadiens’ second-round pick (33rd overall) in 2012, and is currently playing for Frolunda of the Swedish league. Snow was unsure if Collberg would be with the team in next summer’s training camp — the last one before the franchise moves to Brooklyn — but he was sure how much Collberg impressed the Islanders’ scouts in the 2014 World Junior Championships, when he had one goal and five assists in seven games for the silver-medal-winning Swedish team.
Even going back to the 2012 draft, the Islanders have been high on Collberg.
“Good speed, good hands,” Snow said. “He could be a real impact player.”
He had better be, or this could be another bad day of transactions in a recent Islanders history chock full of them.
Even though Snow called this a “strange” and “soft” market on deadline day compared to years past, he said this was “by far” the best offer he received — not just in the hours leading up to the deadline, but in the days and weeks prior.
Vanek, the 30-year-old sniper who has scored more than 40 goals in an NHL season twice, had recently turned down Snow’s seven-year, $50 million contract extension offer, and it was clear to all he was available as a rental, utterly determined to become a free agent on July 1 no matter the circumstances.
Considering that in late October Snow had traded away another to-be free agent in Matt Moulson, along with first- and second-round picks, to the Sabres in order to obtain Vanek, the risk of getting a good return was high.
Having traded another pending free agent, defenseman Andrew MacDonald, to the Flyers on Tuesday for second- and third-round picks, at least Snow has some assets going into June’s draft. By then, he might be able to package some of those picks into NHL-ready players — most notably a goalie — and therefore not submit star center John Tavares to another lost season once he returns from his knee injury.
“It was a good day,” Snow said, “under trying circumstances.”