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Are the Isles Taking on Water?

March 5, 2019, 9:18 AM ET [14 Comments]
Jay Greenberg
Blogger •NHL Hall of Fame writer • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Only once in NHL history has a franchise turned the most goals allowed in one season into the fewest the next. According to Bob Waterman at the Elias Sports Bureau, it happened in the second year of the league, 1918-19, by the Senators.

Seems only three teams completed that season because the Montreal Wanderers’ rink burned down. Hate when that happens. But don’t make fun of outlasting the competition in a three-team league, especially in a year the Lightning are a one-team league. At least in 1919-18 the NHL wasn’t watered down by expansion because the whole league was an expansion. But we digress, trying to impress upon you that it has been 101 years since anybody has done what the Islanders are trying to do.

With Devon Toews no less. Also without Calvin de Haan, who was a plus player on surely one of the more minus teams there ever was before leaving in free agency for Carolina. The Islanders lost a good defenseman in de Haan. Also some unmentionable guy who must have been the one who designed the fish stick jerseys, what with the way the fans carried on against him last week in his return to the Nassau Coliseum We haven’t seen such vindictiveness since Clark Gillies decided he’d had just about enough of Dave Schultz.

We have learned that the prodigal’s name is John Tavares. We had to ask around quite a bit because it is hard to understand people who are spitting as they answer. Seems Tavares wrote a Dear John letter to Long Island, albeit with a heavy heart that, of course, hasn’t helped the pill, big enough for Alexei Yashin to choke on, go down. Tavares went home no less, a sentiment incomprehensible to fans of a team that has been without a home really for the last four years. Brooklyn, Uniondale, Elmont? Forgive them, they don’t know what a home is.

Within the year, there will be a hole in the ground at Belmont Park bigger even than the hole in these fans’ hearts, but the new arena will be completed oh, about 2086 or whenever Rick DiPietro’s contract runs out, whatever comes last. Whenever that is, the franchise ‘s survival seems absolutely, positively, perhaps assured, considerable consolation to this abused fan base, not that these people are self-pitying, oh no, not ever.

Back to this year. With Tavares gone for nothing in return, Islander hopes seem centered around any possible comeback by Pat LaFontaine. Historically, some teams have lost their best player–Bobby Hull by the Blackhawks; Wayne Gretzky by the Oilers–and still remained elite, but you had to be the kind of fan who saw greatness in Brad Delgarno to see these orphans, abandoned by their star, overcoming this kind of blow so soon.

Seemingly assured was last place in the Metropolitan Division again–and again and again–at least until the new GM, an old GM named Lou Lamoriello, found another Marty Brodeur. For sure, there was dancing in the streets of–uh, where does this team play again? –at the fall of Garth Snow. But the playoffs in 2019? Certainly not as easy to believe in as was John Spano at first.

But somehow less has turned out to be more. It never worked that way when Patrick Flatley got shipped out, but miracles can happen. The no-man-is-an-Isle survivors of this shipwreck reported to camp with a chip on their shoulders even bigger than Mike Milbury’s ego. Whatdaya know, the Islanders bolted from the gate even faster than Trevor Linden once wanted out.

Lamoriello cleared all pictures of the families of office workers off their desks. Not much dead Weight from the team, though, because it’s become clear there really wasn’t much of that. Character, it turns out, the Isles have in abundance, even though there isn’t a whole lot here except for a belief in each other and the coach.

Oh yes, the coach. Hot to Trotz from no less than the Stanley Cup champions, this wizard of the 1-3-1 is using the reflection of his ring won in Washington to both put a gleam in these players’ eyes and to blind the opposition goalie into giving up enough goals to leave New York 37-21-7 with 17 games remaining.

Even before Bobby Francis won a Jack Adams Trophy, we had a bone to pick with the broadcasters for turning the Coach of the Year into an almost yearly most improved team award. There have been not enough rewards for keeping good teams motivated and getting superstars to buy in to the greater good. That said, in 2018-19 Barry Trotz has been the Coach for Any Year.

Does Anders Lee-Brock Nelson-Jordan Eberle strike you as a first line on a contender? Not Lamoriello, as all are unsigned as yet for 2019-29. The team’s Tavares replacement-to-be–the 21-year old Mathew Barzal–isn’t even playing on the top unit yet the Islanders are competing for a divisional crown.

As Rome wasn’t built in a day, Lou’s big additions were third liners Leo Komarov and Val Filppula. Whoopee. The Islanders have two journeymen, Robin Lehner and Thomas Greis, in goal, not anything resembling an anchor defenseman and yet . . . Holy David Volek! Look at what these guys have done

Shows you the power of organization. Also, the state of the league in which a team with clearly not enough still has plenty to compete. Still, the results have been remarkable. Until the last couple of weeks getting a goal off these guys was even harder that getting public money for a new arena in Nassau County.

That wasn’t the case Sunday when the red hot and opportunistic Flyers quickly jumped up 2-0, prompting a goalie change and a reality check that the Islanders are not built to come from behind. On this day, they were not very good around the goal—in this case actually both goals–and succumbed 4-1 to drop to 2-4-1 the last seven and to a perilous four points from ninth place.

As the snow melts, this looks like water seeking its own level. But probably the Islanders haven’t gotten any worse so much as the competition is getting better. Lamoriello presented his unwillingness to make a deal at the deadline as a vote of confidence. It’s really an admission that he didn’t have many chips to play.

“Little details,” defenseman Johnny Boychuck calls the difference between the Isles of 29-15-4 and the Isles of 8-6-5 since. Without big talent, little details are what a team must cling to.

“This time of year, teams raise their levels so you have to make sure you do, too.” said Trotz. “We have been a high-level team all year but can we raise it more?

“That’s what we have to do every night. We spend so much time on the D side of it but we also have to pick it up offensively; be harder to check. Our power play has to produce at a higher level than it has all year.

“Absolutely, early in the year I don’t think there were a lot of expectations around the league as to what the Islanders were going to be. Now that we have been in the upper echelon for a good portion, I think everybody understands what we do well so they put a little more time into (countering) it. They have more respect for you. If you want to be an elite team, you have to expect the other team’s best effort.”

The teams competing for the final two spots —Pittsburgh, Carolina, Columbus, Montreal and refusing-to-quit Philadelphia—have more talent than the Islanders. The structure that has gotten them this far has to hold up for another month, generally the hardest one.
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