Barry Trotz doesn’t care about style points, only about standings points.
“There’s no reconciliation. You collect points in this league. Every night, if you can get a point, it’s huge. We’ll take points every night and be in good shape, I guarantee you that.”
His team has now played 12 games, barely over 20 percent of their shortened 2021 schedule, and sit with 13 points, 54 percent of all possible. Over a full 82-game schedule we are all used to, that equates to an 89-point pace, likely not enough to place them in the playoffs. It’s not a matter of effort, rather one of results, and New York simply is not getting enough consistency up and down its lineup.
The players will all repeat the same mantra in post-game Zoom conferences, and to be honest, we shouldn’t be expecting any more out of them. I mean, what are they supposed to say?
People see the comments from captain Anders Lee – “I think it was a pretty good game. There are a lot of good things we can take out of this game and move forward. Bad breaks are going to happen. We had opportunities in overtime and the shootout” – and defenseman Ryan Pulock – “We stuck to our game plan most of the night. Obviously, for the most part, we did a good job at playing our game” – and reckon the players don’t care or don’t comprehend what everyone else observes. They do.
Of the past three games, only one appeared to offer any comfort and that was the first one, last weekend’s 4-3 win over these same Pittsburgh Penguins. The win over the New York Rangers was an affair where, once again, they simply didn’t generate anything offensively, scratching out the two points thanks to the fourth line. Thursday night, prior to the magic we all witnessed Mathew Barzal weave, they had two grade-A scoring chances the entire night. In the overtime and shootout, their scoring troubles came to roost as they barely caused Pittsburgh to flinch.
Brock Nelson and Josh Bailey have struggled so mightily to this point you would believe they stepped back five to seven years in their development. They haven’t, and you can’t keep blaming ‘lack of training camp’ as an excuse. We’re now 13 games in, and the team simply needs more from both – much, much more than they have been given. Anthony Beauvillier, hoping to return to the lineup soon, was misfiring as well, while Kieffer Bellows is in the dog house but Leo Komarov continues to get minutes.
Back to Barzal, and Semyon Varlamov as a sweetener: where would this team be without them? I shudder to think. Barzal has 18 percent of the team goals himself and has been involved in 47 percent of all scoring plays. He simply has been on another level after signing a three-year contract extension, one where he is earning every penny to date.
“I got a full head of steam and knew it was a one on one. Just tried to make a move on him. I had one similar earlier in the game and didn’t score, so I tried a similar play and fortunately it worked out”, the star center said after Thursday’s game.
Varlamov seems bolstered by the arrival of Ilya Sorokin as his crease mate, as he has been lights out from the go. Comparatively, last year, he was 2.53, .918 over his first six starts, followed by 2.47, .919 in his subsequent seven. First nine games this year? How about 1.98, .929 and three shutouts. His game is much simpler, more compact, and he is controlling rebounds excellently, keeping a team struggling to score goals (2.33 per game) in each outing.
The fourth line is reinvigorated, a positive sign. They have also scored three of the Islanders’ last five goals, an added bonus, but simply can’t be the norm.
“We take a lot of pride in how we play, what we bring to this team. How we go out there and compete every single night. We’re working hard to get better and playing as a unit of three out there. On the forecheck, you’re not just getting one of us, you’re getting all three of us,” Casey Cizikas said Thursday night.
With Boston and Buffalo up following, the Islanders need to stop hoping on Cizikas, Matt Martin, and Cal Clutterbuck to generate offense. Or they’re doomed.
Follow Andy Graziano on Twitter: @AndyGraz_WFAN
Follow WFAN on Social Media
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Twitch