All the Islanders really need is permission to play the smart, patient, responsible style that brought them success in the recent past.
All the Islanders really need is permission to play the smart, patient, responsible style that brought them success in the recent past.
New York Islanders team president Lou Lamoriello likes to say a hockey team is like an orchestra.
On Saturday, Lamoriello hired a new conductor, legendary goalie, and former NHL Coach-of-the-Year Patrick Roy, bringing Lane Lambert's tenure to a thunderous conclusion after just 127 games as head coach.
So fans, does Lambert's exit feel hasty? Or long overdue?
Kind of both.
Consider that - interim coaches aside - only three men have coached fewer games for the Islanders than Lambert before being fired: Phil Goyette (40), Lorne Henning (48), and Steve Stirling (124).
That means Scott Gordon (181 games) lasted longer than Coach Lane. Yikes.
Lambert had more talent in his Isles cupboard than any of those four other names - probably combined.
That said, he did make the playoffs in his only full season in charge, and this season, his team went 13-4-5 between November 17 and January 4, tied for the second-best record in the league over that span.
Jan. 4 was hardly two weeks ago.
But even in times of victory, Lambert's job did not feel secure, and that is the paradox of Lane Lambert's 2023-24 Islanders.
Physically, they looked pretty sound. Mentally, they looked really unsound.
Therefore, win or lose, Coach Lambert's days always felt numbered, and his proverbial "hot seat" got a little toastier with every botched line change, bad penalty, and defensive breakdown.
The stats confirm what your eyes have been telling you. As of Lambert's final game, the Islanders allowed the second most high danger scoring chances per outing in the entire NHL. The only team worse in that fairly important category, the San Jose Sharks, are 20 games under .500.
So even if Patrick Roy hadn't watched an Islanders game in years - which he probably hadn't - he shouldn't require weeks of film study to diagnose the problems.
For example, we can presume at one point during their initial phone call, Lamoriello said something to the effect of, "We don't cover the low slot in our zone. Like, at all."
If Roy's response was, in any part, "Well, maybe you should," then the Islanders are already a more formidable contender than they were on Saturday morning.
And this is the paradox of Patrick Roy's 2023-24 Islanders.
Yes, Roy is a big personality who can motivate players. Yes, he once berated his own coach and general manager in the middle of a game. Yes, he once challenged the entire Detroit Red Wings lineup to a fight. Yes, he almost broke a plexiglass partition over Bruce Boudreau's bald head in the first regular season game he ever coached. Fire. Tenacity. Guts. Etc.
And the Islanders don't need any of that.
Because the Islanders are a veteran team that has fought the good fight. It's a team full of professionals. They don't need help getting out of bed in the morning, and they don't need rah-rah speeches at the rink. All they really need is permission to play the smart, patient, responsible style that brought them success in the recent past.
In other words, it's time to forecheck with two guys rather than three or four. It's time to defend the front of the net with defensemen rather than forwards or, as was often the case this season, nobody.
Perhaps the quest for more even-strength offense was an admirable endeavor, in theory. Now stop it.
Midway through Roy's first game on Sunday night, you may have heard Butch Goring and Thomas Hickey bantering on MSG about how much the Isles' "gap control" had improved. Translation: You don't need to pinch on every play.
Sounds intuitive? Well, Islander fans can recall a full decade when that was anything but their team's motto.
One particularly puzzling - though amusing - element of the Islanders' coaching story of the past 15 years is how the aforementioned Scott Gordon's high-risk, high-octane game plan remained within the DNA of the team for nearly eight years after his departure, while hall-of-famer Barry Trotz's more conservative - and successful - structure basically disappeared as soon as he was replaced. Go figure.
But Coach Lambert did leave Islander fans one big gift this season. It took a while, but the Islander power play is NHL-quality again, and that's a major development. Considering their depth at all positions, a good power play can certainly fuel a deep playoff run. But only if they take care of business five-on-five.
So we all should have seen this coming.
The moral of Lamoriello's orchestra analogy is that no one part of the team is that much more important than any other, including the head coach, which is why Lou goes through them the way he does.
As Devils GM, he made five trips to the finals with four different bench bosses. He fired Robbie Ftorek unexpectedly, and Larry Robinson won the Stanley Cup. Then he fired Robinson unexpectedly, and Kevin Constantine finished the season 20-8-3. Then he fired Constantine unexpectedly, and Pat Burns won the Devs another Cup. Claude Julien, John MacLean, and Peter DeBoer were later axed in-season as well.
The point is, in Lamoriello-land, a coaching change is not a drastic roll of the dice. It's a tactic. A weapon. It often comes from a position of strength rather than weakness - one last tweak of the ensemble so the orchestra can stay in tune through April and hopefully May.
All the Isles really need is, to borrow a line from some political pundits, a "return to sanity" campaign.
And ironically, so far, that's what the famously colorful Roy has brought.