If the Islanders want to win, they're going to need to possess the puck more
The Rangers' Alexis Lafreniere chases the Islanders' Pierre Engvall on Sunday. Credit: AP/Seth Wenig
It doesn’t take deep analytics to clearly see the Islanders’ regression. Their opponents have been possessing the puck more during this potentially season-crushing four-game losing streak.
And this was something coach Patrick Roy had appeared to have fixed before things turned south again.
It will be difficult to reverse the alarming trend when the Islanders face the Hurricanes on Tuesday night at UBS Arena. The Hurricanes routinely have lopsided shot advantages as they direct the puck on net from everywhere and anywhere. It’s not an issue if the Hurricanes can be kept to the outside in the offensive zone, but it will become one if the Islanders play as disorganized defensively as they did in Sunday's 5-2 loss to the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
“We covered a lot of ice and that’s a team that moves well,” Roy said after Sunday’s defeat. “They had a couple of pocket chances. We just didn’t cover it well in those situations. They were moving well, they forechecked us well. They managed the puck better than us.
“I think we could be faster giving options,” Roy added when asked whether there was a disconnect between the defensemen and forwards. “That will certainly help our 'D'.”
But, as the cliché goes, often the best defense is a good offense.
And that means being able to transition the puck through the neutral zone, have clean entries at the blue line and get the puck deep to establish a forecheck or cycle.
The Islanders were deficient in all of that against the Rangers. Their Corsi For percentage (used to evaluate a player's team's puck possession on the ice) skating five-on-five was just 41.88%, per NaturalStatTrick.com, while the Rangers were at 58.12%.
To be fair, the Islanders’ Corsi For percentage the previous day was 54.0% against the Senators. Yet the Senators won 4-3 in overtime on what Roy described as four gift goals because of on-ice mistakes.
The Islanders haven’t had more than seven shots in any of the first periods in their losing streak.
The shame is that it appeared Roy had the Islanders pointed in the right direction through a six-game winning streak that preceded their current 0-3-1 skid.
Through Roy’s first 19 games since replacing the fired Lane Lambert on Jan. 20, the Islanders had increased their time in the offensive zone to 6:25 compared to 5:38 under Lambert, per statistics compiled by NHL Network’s Mike Kelly. The Islanders had spent an average of 7:37 in their defensive zone under Lambert, and that had improved to 6:21 under Roy.
Sunday, the Rangers played the majority of the game on the attack.
“We’ve got to be connected, we’ve got to be tight as groups of five,” defenseman Noah Dobson said. “It just comes down to we’ve all got to be better, every single one of us. Go in there forechecking hard. Everyone has got to come back together as a group of five. When we’re breaking pucks out good, you see five guys in the picture all the time.”
The Islanders must start possessing the puck more before they permanently lose a grip on this season.
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.
