Barry Trotz On His Decision To Implement A Defensive System With Islanders

What did Trotz see in the Islanders that allowed him to think that defense was the way to go?

ELMONT, NY -- What former New York Islanders head coach Barry Trotz did for the organization cannot be summed up into a few sentences.

He changed the culture, got the players to believe in themselves, and ultimately brought respect back to a struggling organization. 

Trotz's success over his tenure -- qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in three of his four years with two back-to-back runs to the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals -- began from day one when he arrived on Long Island.

Fresh off winning the Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals, Trotz walked through the doors in the summer of 2018 with the goal of getting the Islanders playing the right way.

In the season prior, the Islanders finished second-to-last in the Metropolitan Division with the eighth-best offense (3.18 goals per game) but a league-worst defense (3.57 goals against per game). 

The Islanders had no structure, a run-and-gun offense with little defensive support, and Trotz had to decide which side of the puck to trust to get wins.

He elected to go the defensive route, turning the Islanders not just into a respectful defensive team in 2018-19 but the best shutdown defense in the entire league. 

Backed by strong defense and goaltending, the Islanders finished that season second in the Metropolitan Division, allowing a league-low 2.33 goals per game. 

Trotz took home the Jack Adams Award that summer after the significant turnaround. 

The Islanders' offense wasn't nearly as strong as it had been, scoring just 2.72 goals per game (22nd), but their elite defense allowed them to win the low-scoring affairs, which became the team's identity. 

From 2018-2022, with Trotz relieved of his duties following a tough 2021-22 campaign, the Islanders allowed 2.56 goals per game in 288 games, only trailing the Boston Bruins by 0.4 (2.52 GPG). 

What did Trotz see in the Islanders that allowed him to think that going with a defensive structure for a team that had been so bad defensively was the way to go?

"I didn't know if we could make that big of a dramatic switch," Trotz said on Saturday morning ahead of the Islanders game against his Nashville Predators. "Honestly, when I left [Washington], I watched games, and it was really hard to assess the group because of the buy-in from some of the forwards, as the mindset was not always in the same place as a group.

"And so, there was some indecision and all that, but what I found was that the defense wasn't as bad as they were made out to be, and the forwards weren't as good as they were made out to be."

Trotz acknowledged the importance goaltending played in the turnaround, kickstarted by Thomas Greiss and Robin Lehner, who won the Jennings Trophy after Trotz's first season. 

"My main thing was to fix the things that you can fix," Trotz said. "There were some good offensive people who put some predictability into their game and we got some commitment and some standard, where if certain things are not acceptable, they're non-negotiable.

"Once we set out to do that, then it was really good leadership and cultural things that we tried to implement day in and day out, and the buy-in was good, and we started having success."

But as Trotz remembered, it wasn't just a snap of a finger, and the Islanders were off and running.

"I'm trying to think how we were after the first 20 games. I don't know if we were over .500, and then we sort of took off," Trotz said. "Your identity sort of takes off, and you go on a little run."

The Islanders started the 2018-19 season 10-8-2, essentially .500, before going 38-19-5 over their final 62 games. 

"I always felt that you got to have some structure -- you have to have a foundation -- but your structure and accountability is really big," Trotz said. "And we were accountable to each other, and the players that weren't playing, I tried to make them accountable as a coach."

Since Trotz left Long Island, the Islanders lost that structure and accountability.

In an effort to restore that, Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello brought in Hockey Hall of Famer Patrick Roy, hoping he could get this group back to respecting the game the way they did for so many years under Trotz. 

Roy has struggled to get the team to be consistent in that regard, but we've seen the structure and accountability skyrocket since his arrival, using those building blocks Trotz laid starting in 2018 to get the team back in a playoff spot with now five games to go in the regular season. 

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