Islanders want to be more aggressive on penalty kill this season

The “flush” is back for the Islanders’ penalty kill.

For those not in the know, it means the forwards will try to force opponents on the power play out to the walls. Combined with the defensemen aggressively pursuing the puck near the blue line, the Islanders hope a unit that finished last in the NHL last season will show improvement.

“I think one point of emphasis for us is we want to be more aggressive than we have been in the past,” defenseman Adam Pelech said Saturday after the third day of training camp at Northwell Health Ice Center in East Meadow. “I guess it starts with the forwards and the flush, but it’s the defensemen as well. Any loose pucks, any rims, any bobbled pucks, we need to have cues for when we want to be aggressive and pressure.”

Former Devil Tommy Albelin was hired to run the penalty kill after assistant coach Doug Houda, the previous steward, was not retained.

“We watched the clips from a couple of years ago and the team was doing really well on the flush,” Roy said. “So we’re just going back to that. That was part of what Tommy wanted to do. He wanted us to be a flush team.”

The Islanders were 11th in the NHL on the penalty kill in both 2019-20 and 2020-21 under Barry Trotz as they advanced to the NHL semifinals each season.

“It was definitely very frustrating,” Pelech said of last season’s struggles on the penalty kill. “I think it’s great to get a fresh set of eyes on it with Tommy. He’s got some great ideas. We all know we need to be better on the kill.”

Pelech, defenseman Ryan Pulock and forwards Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Pierre Engvall worked as the penalty-killers during Saturday’s practice.

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.