Benched stars Mathew Barzal and Anthony Duclair responded with a dominant performance, igniting a crucial win after their coach's bold statement.
When New York Islanders head coach Patrick Roy decided to sit Mathew Barzal, Anthony Duclair, and Anders Lee for the entirety of the third period in their eventual 5-0 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday afternoon, he was sending a clear message:
Roy made it clear in his postgame that Lee hadn't done anything wrong on the 2-0 goal late in the second period, the goal that got the whole line benched, but that those are his linemates and you stick with them.
The biggest question would be how Barzal and Duclair would respond against the Philadelphia Flyers.
It's safe to say that Roy's message was delivered, loud and clear.
Not only were Barzal and Duclair strong on their tracking and backchecking, but the two were also tremendous in a 4-0 win.
Barzal recorded a goal and an assist, with his assist tying Clark Gillies (359) for the fifth-most in franchise history.
His goal gave the Islanders a 2-0 lead:
He then assisted on Tony DeAngelo's power-play goal extended that to 3-0:
Duclair earned the secondary assist on both of these goals.
"Well, it was important," Roy said on this line and the team's bounce-back. "The first game back is always the toughest one, and it was nice for us to bounce back from our first game back from the West [...] Anthony Duclair has two assists, Barzal has a goal and one assist, but I thought that it was a solid game from our team."
Lee, who was not playing on their line, recorded an assist as well, playing alongside Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Maxim Tsyplakov:
Jonathan Drouin, who had a tremendous game but saw his goal drought reach 29 games, played in Lee's spot on the Barzal line.
When Barzal's line was on the ice, the Islanders outshot the Flyers 5-1, outscoring them 1-0 in 10:28 minutes of action. When Barzal was on the ice (17:28), NYI outshot PHI 11-2, outscoring them 2-0.
Roy took a gamble when he sat Barzal's line on Saturday, a move that would have been questioned heavily, even more so if he didn't get the response he was looking for.
The gamble paid off as the Islanders collectively put forth one of the better 60-minute efforts we've seen from this group in quite a while.
"It was a solid team effort tonight," Roy said. "From the start to the end, I really thought that we played that 60 minutes we talked about before the game. We wanted to play a solid 200-foot game for 60 minutes, and that's exactly what we did. There was not much. I mean, both teams played pretty well defensively. I know it's a 4-0 game, but I thought both teams played well defensively, not many scoring chances. So I was pleased with the effort of our guys."
The Islanders got a big two points, but there's more to be had: a back-to-back home-and-home with the New York Rangers on Wednesday and Thursday.