Islanders & Their Awkward Start to Season
Awkward would be the best word to describe the New York Islanders start to the 2023-24 season.
Awkward would be the best word to describe the New York Islanders start to the 2023-24 season.
New York boasted a record of 2-0-0 after two games, playing sound defensively against both the Buffalo Sabres and Arizona Coyotes, winning 3-2 and 1-0, respectively.
Those two games were ultra-tight, and the Islanders' defensive structure, along with some timely goals, got the job done.
So, not a tremendous amount of offense, but backed by Ilya Sorokin's brilliance, the goals were enough to win, and that's what matters for New York at the end of the day.
Then came a Friday night dance with the New Jersey Devils, a team favored to either win the Metropolitan or come in second place in the division.
Unlike in the wins, the Islanders' offense came alive, scoring four goals. However, it was their structure that failed them in a 5-4 overtime loss.
One could argue that their five-on-five structure was fine since they outscored the Devils 4-0. However, allowing four power-play goals will burn you.
One of the reasons the Islanders took so many penalties was their structure and their inability to stay poised against the Devils' speed.
A day later, up in Buffalo, the Islanders structure wasn't perfect, but Semyon Varlamov certainly was for most of the game, and that's part of it. But a pair of goals by Buffalo in 2:16 before the end of the second proved costly in what became a 3-1 loss.
Then came Tuesday night against the Colorado Avalanche, another likely divisional winner. Like against New Jersey, the Islanders scored four goals, but that wasn't enough because their structure could not stay compact against the speed of Colorado in a 7-4 loss (two empty nets).
So, to recap, against the "weaker teams," the Islanders' offense hasn't come alive, but their defense has. Against the more elite teams, the offense hasn't been the issue, while the defense has been.
It's not a shock, given that when you play elite teams, you have to ramp up your goal production because they will score goals no matter how strong a structure is. Against the weaker teams, it's more about getting the lead and holding on.
But the most concerning part for the Islanders is if it was not for their goaltending so far, all five of their games could have ended in losses.
With Sorokin or Varlamov in goal, four goals a night should get the Islanders two points.
We continue on with the awkwardness.
After the power-play woes a season ago, that needed to be corrected if the Islanders were going to make the playoffs, which Mathew Barzal stated before the start of the season.
Despite going 2-for-16 with the man advantage so far (12.5 percent) the power play has actually looked better. After one or two games, we've seen Noah Dobson's confidence rise, as he's dishing the puck quickly from the point.
That's certainly an encouraging sign, and it's all about turning last year's negatives into this season's positives.
One thing that was a positive a season ago was the Islanders' penalty kill, which operated at an 82.2 percent clip, good for ninth-best in the NHL.
After starting this season a perfect 5-for-5, allowing one total shot through two games, the penalty kill has fallen apart, allowing five goals in the last 11 tries.
The penalty kill lost them the game against Jersey, and the Avalanche power-play marker by Ryan Johansen had the Islanders chasing from Jump Street.
The awkward train rolls on.
Cal Clutterbuck, a fourth-line player for his entire time with New York, has been given shifts on Jean-Gabriel Pageau's right over the last two games and made the most of his first shift on the third line Tuesday night, scoring the 1-1 tying goal halfway through the first period.
"I think our games kind of mesh well," Clutterbuck said postgame. "It's been fun. It's been a good opportunity."
Oliver Wahlstrom, who was demoted to the fourth line rather quickly, barely played (8:12) in a role he has no business playing in.
While that's happening, Hudson Fasching, a strong bottom-six player, sits in the scratch house, along with another solid depth forward in Julien Gauthier, whose speed could certainly have been used to counteract the Avalanches'.
If Clutterbuck is going to be a third-line going forward, that marks the end of the Islanders' fourth line as we have come to know it and changes how Lambert uses them throughout a game, which impacts the personnel that gets played on that line.
To the defense, we go.
The Islanders best defensemen, Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock, have looked like shells of themselves in their own zone.
Pelech, who is now playing with Dobson, was on the ice for all five Avalanche goals Tuesday night and has now been on the ice for eight of the nine five-on-five goals the Islanders have allowed.
Pulock, who is skating with Alexander Romanov, struggled mightily against New Jersey, especially defending Jack Hughes in overtime, and been on the ice for a total of seven goals.
"They're playing a lot of minutes, for starters, with Mayfield out," Islanders head coach Lane Lambert said on the two P's. "But, again, they're battling and battling against the other teams' top players. So, keeping it simple and trying to keep it simple would be one of the things that we would continue to work on."
Under former head coach Barry Trotz, Pelech and Pulock emerged as elite defensemen, albeit as a pairing, but the Islanders will go nowhere unless they clean up their act.
Right now, Romanov has been the Islanders' strongest defenseman, as he has not been on the ice for a five-on-five goal against.
"Well, I don't know if we need a system overhaul. I think it's just we need to clean it up," Pulock said after Tuesday's loss. "We need a little more detail in certain areas of our game."
To the Islanders' credit, the defense hasn't been abysmal every game, and they've certainly battled, but it's the little plays that aren't being made that are allowing secondary and tertiary chances for their opponents who have made the most of their opportunities.
"The individual mistakes are within the structure. And so the structure breaks down when individual mistakes are made," Lambert said. But, at the end of the day, we have to move forward..."
The Islanders are back on the practice ice Wednesday afternoon as they have a lot of work to do before the Ottawa Senators come to town on Thursday night.