Time has come for Islanders to prove they are Stanley Cup contenders again

It’s a simple either/or for the Islanders.

Either last season’s disappointing playoff miss was the direct result of a COVID-19-impacted schedule or the team’s trusted core has aged past its prime and is no longer capable of being a Stanley Cup contender.

So this season will either prove that last season was an unavoidable misadventure made worse by the NHL forcing the Islanders to play too long with a compromised roster or that president and general manager Lou Lamoriello erred in forsaking wholesale changes. He did promote first-time NHL bench boss Lane Lambert from associate coach to replace the fired Barry Trotz and acquired defenseman Alexander Romanov.

There’s no doubt the Islanders have question marks both up front and on the back end, though their goalie tandem of Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov is considered one of the NHL’s best.

The answers start to come on Thursday night when the Islanders open their regular-season against the Panthers at UBS Arena. It’s obvious what Lamoriello, Lambert and the players believe even with the average age of their projected opening-night lineup at 28.5 and the forwards averaging 30.3.

“After a long, long summer for us, the longest summer we’ve had in a few years, I think everyone is really itching to get back on the ice and get everything underway,” defenseman Adam Pelech said. “The general vibe is excitement.”

Lambert, of course, was intricately involved in both the Islanders’ success under Trotz and last season’s flop after back-to-back trips to the NHL semifinals. But while Lambert worked on Trotz’s staff since 2011 through previous stops with the Predators and Capitals — including winning the Cup in Washington in 2018 — there were some noticeable differences in on-ice style through training camp.

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Lamoriello’s teams are always built around their defensive structure. But Lambert is pushing both his forwards and defensemen to be more aggressive in the offensive zone and the team showed more of a shooting mentality through the preseason. More shots were coming from the defensemen at the points and there were more rebounds available.

But to carry that over into the regular season, the Islanders will need to play at a faster pace than they did last season. Cleaner exit passes and breakouts from the defensive zone will be a must to quicken their speed. The deficit in that area after trading away smooth-skating defensemen Devon Toews and Nick Leddy in successive offseasons because of salary cap reasons was all too apparent in last season’s failure.

Acquiring the 22-year-old Alexander Romanov from the Canadiens for the 13th overall pick in this summer’s NHL draft should help. Romanov’s main strengths are his skating ability and his physical edge. Robin Salo, 23, with a chance to play his first full season in the NHL after being a second-round pick in 2017, is also an impressive skater.

“Robin uses his skating ability to create a lot of space,” captain Anders Lee said. “To get away from the forecheck and to be able to break out the puck and, a lot of time, enter the zone on his own. As forwards when you’ve got a defenseman back there that can skate like that, sometimes it feels like you’ve got an extra one with you.”

The hope is that more efficiency from the defensemen will equate to more consistency from the forwards. The Islanders finished 24th in the NHL last season with 231 goals — the Panthers were first with 340 — and their goal differential of minus-6 ranked 19th.

In particular, top-six wings Zach Parise and Kyle Palmieri can’t afford to go long stretches without scoring. Parise started last season with one goal through his first 33 games before finishing with 15 goals and 20 assists in 82 games. Palmieri had one goal in his first 29 games before ending with 15 goals and 18 assists in 69 games.

Those two will start the season on Mathew Barzal’s line and the Islanders also need more production than last season’s 15 goals and 44 assists from their elite playmaker, who just signed an eight-year, $73.2 million extension.

So either the Islanders will get what they need from their forwards and defensemen or they’ll likely miss the playoffs again.

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.