ELMONT, N.Y. — Patrick Roy believes that he has found the root of the issue preventing his New York Islanders from finding any consistency.
It is not structure, nor is it demeanor. It is the length of their shifts.
“I think the consistency comes with the length of our shift,” Roy said following the Islanders’ 4-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. “I do believe that. A season is a season, but it’s fragile at the same time, especially for a team that battles [for a playoff spot]… When every game matters and you’re going home and you think, ‘What could I’ve done today? What could we’ve done today? Could I do this? Could I do that?’ I think that’s what’s going on. Instead, we have to say, ‘Hey, let’s do this together,’… and rely on everyone to do it. I do believe the consistency will come.”
Following a six-game winning streak, the Islanders have lost five straight games. With Monday night’s result against Carolina in which they gave up three goals across the final eight minutes of the first period coupled with wins from the Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit Red Wings, they are three points back of the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference and five points out of third place and an automatic playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division with 14 games left to play.
“It’s disappointing again,” veteran forward Matt Martin said. “We’re running out of words to say and we just have to start finding ways to win and digging a little deeper here and scratch some wins together. [The standings are] tight. No one is really pulling away, which is a positive, but we have to get it in gear.”
New York’s losing streak has shown an obvious lack of edge in its play. Often over this stretch, they have looked like the slower team, forcing them to chase the game rather than fulfill their role of being the desperate side clawing for a playoff spot. They have been outscored 20-6 over their last five games and outshot by nearly 20 (157-136) — frequently playing on the back foot.
This is where Roy’s theory about shorter shifts comes in.
Monday night saw seven Islanders average more than 50 seconds per shift compared to the Hurricanes’ one, which happened to be two-goal-scorer Seth Jarvis.
In a 5-2 loss against the high-flying Rangers on Sunday, they had five players average 50-plus seconds per shift, including Mathew Barzal’s 1:06.
In their 4-0 loss on March 14 to the Buffalo Sabres, that number swelled to 10 players.
“If you want to be consistent in the intensity, that’s a good wake-up call for me… you can’t have long shifts,” Roy said. “You have to keep your shifts short and that gives a rhythm to your team… everybody is rolling, everybody comes to the ice a lot. You’re not staying two, three minutes on the bench before you get your next shift.”
When asked who the main culprit of the issue might be, Roy said “It’s on everyone, myself included.”
“Sometimes, we’re in the O-zone and they’ve been on the ice for 28, 30 seconds and we’ll give them another 10,” he continued. “Sometimes that 10 turns into a minute, 1:10, 1:20… We all get frustrated but when we start spending time in our own zone, it’s when we’ve been [on the ice] for more than 30 seconds. Then, all of a sudden, they’re in our zone. Sometimes, it’s just put the puck deep, change, and bring fresh guys instead of, ‘Oh, I could try to get that goal for us.’
