What was the biggest difference between the New York Islanders players under Lane Lambert and then under Patrick Roy? Here's an analytical breakdown of the players' play-driving stats.
On Wednesday, the Toronto Maple Leafs officially announced that they have hired former New York Islanders head coach Lane Lambert as an associate coach under Craig Berube.
After going 19-15-1 to start the 2023-24 season (45 GP), Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello relieved Lambert of his duties, hiring Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender and former Colorado Avalanche head coach Patrick Roy.
Under Roy, the Islanders went 20-12-5, finishing the season on an 11-game point streak (8-0-4). They sneaked into the postseason as the third seed in the Metropolitan Division before being bounced out of the First Round after a five-game battle with the Carolina Hurricanes.
Under Lambert, the Islanders had lost their way defensively, the team's bread and butter since he and Barry Trotz walked through the doors in the summer of 2018.
Trotz took a team that was one of the worst defensive teams in the league and turned them into an elite shutdown group, which paved the way to back-to-back Eastern Conference Final appearances in 2020 and 2021.
Whatever the reasons are -- age, lack of discipline, lack of attention to detail -- the team failed to take care of business in their own zone, which made it impossible for them to find consistency.
When Roy came aboard, he wasn't focused on getting the Islanders back to playing Trotz defense. He wanted them to be strong defensively, but the main focus was improving their transition game, which starts by making plays on the backend and limiting high-danger chances against.
Per the work of X user @golfops1 and NaturalStatrick.com, we have the analytical answers on the team's play-driving splits under Lambert, then Roy.
The analytics were broken up into three categories (offensive play driving, defensive play driving, and total 5v5 play driving) for each coach.
Here's the numbers:
Now, here's what the numbers mean.
Offensive and defensive play driving is an on-ice metric. The percentages are in relation to the rest of the NHL and is not an individual metric.
While offensive play driving is self explanatory, defensive play driving is more about depressing opposing chances against, while a player is on the ice.
"For example, Anders Lee under Roy was in the 85th league wide percentile at 5v5 in controlling play," @golfops1 said. "Overall, his defense and offense were both above league average (50%), over the 80th percentile in both."
On the contrary, Lee under Lambert was in the 59th percentagile at 5v5 in controlling play, with his offensive play driving at 95 percent while his defensive play driving was at 24 percent.
Overall, what this data shows is that when the Islanders made the switch from Lambert to Roy, most of the players took a hit regarding offensive chance generation.
However, if you look at the data, you can see many saw a tremendous uptick in defensive involvement.
As mentioned, the Islanders needed to play better overall team defense, which meant more players needed to be helping in the defensive zone.
A player that was ridiculed for his defensive play this season was Brock Nelson, who led the team with 34 goals, scoring 20 goals under Lambert in 45 games.
His offensive play-driving percentage was in the 88th percentile under Lambert, while his defensive play-driving percentage was in the 15th percentile.
When Roy took over, Nelson's offensive play driving dropped to the 51st percentile, as he scored 14 goals in 37 games.
However, Nelson's defensive play driving went from the 15th percentile to the 35th percentile.
Although still under 50 percent, it was a drastic improvement.
To go back to Lee, he took a substantial jump in his defensive involvement, sitting in the 24th percentile under Lamber to the 87th percentile under Roy.
Seventeen of the 24 players to play under both coaches saw an uptick in their defensive-zone play-driving percentile.
The question is, a full summer of studying the Roy playbook and a full training camp to put that playbook into action, can the Islanders get the most out of their players defensively, while also getting a more balanced offensive attack?