Gloom and doom? Islanders actually have reasons for hope this season
From left, the Islanders' Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal celebrate after Horvat's winning goal in overtime against the Boston Bruins on Sunday. Credit: AP/Mark Stockwell
So it was great to see the Giants on Monday follow the Islanders’ model of just running it back and hoping the team improves . . .
Ha, no, we jest. We jest.
This season has provided plenty of gloom-and-doom fodder regarding the Islanders, who sit in last place in the Metropolitan Division. They are three games under the NHL’s misleading .500 at 15-18-7 after Sunday night’s 5-4 overtime win in Boston to open a three-game road trip that continues on Thursday night in Las Vegas.
The root has been a stale roster construction that has not infused enough new and younger talent into a core that peaked in 2020 and 2021. And now president and general manager Lou Lamoriello faces the prudent move of having to trade two of his top-six forwards in pending unrestricted free agents Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri even if the team pulls itself back into playoff contention.
But because gloom and doom eventually gets boring and repetitive, let’s set it aside for the next 400 words or so and highlight some reasons for hope for the rest of this Islanders season:
There is potential for this team to score more goals if they free their minds.
The blueprint would be Sunday’s win, in which Anders Lee and Bo Horvat each scored twice, including a shorthanded tally for the latter after the Islanders had totaled only four goals in the preceding three-game losing streak. The difference was obvious. The Islanders did a good job of attacking the net against the Bruins and sending a volume of shots at the crease from everywhere, particularly the blue line.
They played free and confident in the offensive zone, a marked change.
“Sometimes when you’re pressing and the way things have been going, you’ve got to just settle in and play,” Lee said afterward. “I thought we settled in and played a hard game tonight.”
“I thought we put a lot of pucks at the net, and that gives us some momentum,” coach Patrick Roy said after the Islanders put 37 shots on goalie Joonas Korpisalo, out-attempted the Bruins 84-55 and built an 11-7 edge in high-danger chances while skating five-on-five, according to NaturalStatTrick.com. “The more you shoot at the net, the more you feel confident.”
It’s still a great room, so there’s no chance they splinter.
One of Lamoriello’s strengths as a roster-builder is putting an emphasis on character and knowing how the personalities will fit. Some players — Lee, Nelson, Mathew Barzal, Ryan Pulock, Adam Pelech, Scott Mayfield and Casey Cizikas — predate Lamoriello, but this remains a group that truly likes playing together and enjoys each other’s off-ice friendship.
Not every team can say that.
“Just the character of the guys,” Pulock said. “We obviously know that we’re not where we should be and not where we want to be. But it’s not any one single person’s fault. It’s all of ours and we know we can be better as a group. The people we have in the locker room aren’t going to start pointing fingers.”
No one else is scary.
Seven of the eight playoff spots in the Eastern Conference seem to be spoken for, leaving the Islanders competing with the Penguins, Senators, Blue Jackets, Canadiens, Flyers, Red Wings and Rangers for the last berth. The Islanders were four points out of a wild-card spot on Monday.
Tell me, which of the aforementioned teams is going to run away from the pack?
Exactly.
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.
