EAST MEADOW, N.Y. — The New York Islanders still have some habits to shake off to fully embrace what new head coach Patrick Roy is attempting to institute. That’s only natural.
“When you’ve been in a certain kind of system for years, those habits aren’t easy to break,” star forward Mathew Barzal told amNewYork. “Ask anybody who’s been addicted to anything or had a habit of doing anything. We’re trying to break certain things, break certain habits, and create new ones.”
Since Lou Lamoriello’s arrival before the 2018-19 season and the regimes of the club’s two previous head coaches, Barry Trotz and Lane Lambert, the notion of manning the ramparts has been drilled into the Islanders’ minds. That means absorbing the pressure, playing a defensive-first game, and not take too many chances offensively.
It was safe, maybe even too safe — a tactic used for a team that doesn’t necessarily boast the attacking talent to keep up with the opposition.
But the 2023-24 Islanders have the sort of playmaking talent to make such a system an archaic one. Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat are flirting with point-per-game paces. Brock Nelson is on his way toward a third-straight 30-goal season. Noah Dobson is producing at a Norris Trophy-level clip with 47 assists and 54 points across his first 52 games.
That’s the kind of talent that, under Lambert, was being told to make that defensive shell a priority. Because of that, the play suffered to the point of a 12-game stretch that featured nine losses and the eventual firing of the head coach in late January.
In stepped Roy, who is trying to adjust the team’s mindset on the fly with varying results. When his system is working, they can dominate teams as they did on Feb. 8 when they defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 6-2. On other nights, they get caught in between as seen on Saturday in a 5-2 loss to the Calgary Flames in which they posted just six shots in the first period and faced a 3-0 deficit after two.
“It’s just going to take time,” Roy said. “For example, our defense is very active and that’s something very different for them defensively and offensively. Personally, I love a defense that is moving, [but] they’re used to staying near or close to the crease. I want them away from that. It’s going to take a bit of time, but I appreciate everything they’re doing.
“They’re very receptive. They try everything I’m asking and sometimes, you just need to get out of the box and do the job a different way. I think that’s what they’re starting to see and realize. There’s some freedom on this ice for them and I want them to use it.”
To do so, however, Roy is going back to the fundamentals of the game in an attempt to help flip the switch quicker and more consistently. Monday’s practice featured him barking at his side about their forecheck and how the work rate needs to be higher and more relentless: “You think you’re tired? Push it. Push your limits,” Roy said to his team huddled at center ice.
“All our numbers are getting better in all the areas — defensively and offensively — but we still play .500 hockey in some ways,” Roy said. “Now it’s our fundamentals, how we’re going to compete, how we’re going to put our stick on the ice. The compete is probably the thing that I want us to be better at. I want us to be better along the wall, on our 1-on-1’s. Especially offensively. There are ways for us to get those loose pucks, at the net front, stuff like this…
“Structure-wise, we don’t have to be perfect. But where we need to be perfect in as much as possible is in our compete and the way we use our stick.”
Suddenly, practices are forcing the Islanders out of their comfort zone, which wasn’t necessarily the case earlier this season.
“Whatever we do in practice is going to translate into the game,” center Bo Horvat said. “The harder we work in practice and the harder we make it on ourselves, it’s going to feel easier for us when we get into the game. If we can make it harder for each other out there then we can handle anything during the game. That’s just the mentality we have to get accustomed to. The harder we practice, the easier it’s going to be.”
There’s no time to stay on the back foot anymore. Having gone 3-3-1 under Roy before Tuesday night’s meeting with the Seattle Kraken, the Islanders sit eight points out of third place and the final non-Wild-Card playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division with 30 games remaining.
“It’s coming along. It’s not necessarily a two-week thing,” Barzal said. “It’s going to take a second and we’re just trying to do it as fast as we can.”
