Patrick Roy’s colorful postgame wrap-ups have certainly been enlightening. He’s remained positive, even as his New York Islanders sometimes give him few reasons to be that way.
And after Tuesday’s 2-1 shootout loss to the Seattle Kraken, the Isles’ second straight loss at home to a Western Conference team outside the playoff picture, Roy spoke to the UBS Arena fans’ displeasure with a low-impact night.
“The fans were pissed,” Roy said, “and I was also pissed because we didn’t do a good job.”
The Islanders are now 3-3-2 under Roy, who is trying to pull off the difficult job of evaluating his new team while also trying to put the Islanders in position to make the playoffs. When he arrived on Jan. 21, the Islanders sat ninth in the East, two points back of the last wild-card spot.
Now, 24 days in, Roy’s team sits 10th in the East, three points back of that final wild-card spot. Roy is still evaluating but his team is not exactly contending; with 29 games to go and 22 days until the trade deadline, the time may have come for Lou Lamoriello and his new coach to stop trying to figure out how to sneak into the top eight. It may be time to figure out a way to make this team better for the long haul.
The failures under Lane Lambert through the first 45 games were varied. None were seemingly fatal — Lambert’s Islanders were good enough to take leads, sometimes by two or three goals, but not good enough to finish off half of those games. They were good enough to have a top-10 power play for a stretch but not good enough to have a capable penalty kill. They were getting above-average goaltending but not good enough to keep opponents from piling on scoring chances and shots to negate the positive effect Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov could have had.
Now, under Roy, they are clearly defending better, even as some of the bad, old habits appeared on Tuesday against a Seattle team that played in Jersey the night before and is on a hamster wheel to nowhere this season. Roy noted that the Islanders turned the puck over way too much, a familiar sight from earlier this season; he also noted that the team gave up just 11 scoring chances to the Kraken, so that’s progress of a sort.
But the Isles’ tendency to turn pucks over and seemingly be OK with having to defend, even if they were keeping much of the game to the perimeter, is exactly what Roy has been trying to get out of their game. Aggressiveness in all three zones, we’ve heard. Attack pucks, don’t just sit back and keep your man in front of you, we’ve heard. The Islanders said they were eager to make these changes and they have at times.
Now the main culprit is offense, or lack of it. The Islanders still didn’t score enough under Lambert — they were 24th in the league at 2.93 goals per game and have dipped to 2.75 goals per game under Roy. Tuesday was a frustrating game against a team that defends hard and the Islanders, outside of a Kyle Palmieri power-play goal to tie it in the second, didn’t have much of a say in how the game went.
I don’t believe Lamoriello will suddenly become a seller before March 8. That’s like asking a bear to stand in a river full of salmon and hold still. The Isles GM may even decide to add a forward before the deadline, feeling this team can still get into the postseason in a fairly wide-open East. It’s seemingly why Lamoriello waited through a couple different bad stretches to fire Lambert and why he made that move at all — Lamoriello still believes in this group.
But that shouldn’t keep Roy from giving his unvarnished view on what he’s got. Roy doesn’t operate any other way but unvarnished. He’s trying to get Pierre Engvall going with some top-line shifts. He’s trying to get Oliver Wahlstrom going by keeping him in the lineup. He’s sticking to the vintage fourth line. And he’s explaining, to the players and to us, why he’s doing what he’s doing.
If it doesn’t work, as it’s looking now, then all the sacred alignments should be up for discussion. Ruslan Iskhakov has had two good seasons in the AHL. He’s basically the only prospect Bridgeport has — why not give him a look over these last two months? Whose job on a barely-above-.500 team can’t be altered to fit a young player who may bolt back to Europe to make some real money if he doesn’t get a look this season?
Anders Lee is back in a funk with two goals in his last 15 games, both coming in the same game a month ago in Winnipeg. Aside from his terrific resume and excellent captaincy, is he a vital part of this group going forward? Is Jean-Gabriel Pageau, who might interest another team with two years left on his deal beyond this season? Or Palmieri, who is having a solid season but could be an attractive player elsewhere with just one year left on his contract?
Even on defense, there should be no roster spot assured. Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock and Scott Mayfield have five, six and six years left on their deals. Doubtful anyone’s taking on any of those contracts, but maybe it’s time to see if a team covets Pelech so the Islanders can start to remake their roster.
All that comes in the summer, most likely. This isn’t a roster that can be retooled before the deadline, so the Islanders will try to stay in the race as long as they can with what they have. They can tinker, they can listen to their colorful coach explain what he wants, but this Islanders team may be exactly what we’ve been looking at for 53 games: Good at times, but not good enough.
(Photo: Dennis Schneidler / USA Today)
