Andrew Gross: Islanders look faster, more defensive-minded under Pete DeBoer
Islanders head coach Pete DeBoer talks to the media following a win against the Toronto Maple Leafs at UBS Arena on Thursday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Islanders certainly looked different under new coach Pete DeBoer on Thursday night than they did in the 10-game nosedive that cost Patrick Roy his job. They were faster through the neutral zone, more aggressive to pucks, more willing to stop in the defensive zone to be in the right position, more forceful on the forecheck and more successful on the power play in going 2-for-5.
Toss aside that the 5-3 win at UBS Arena, which snapped a season-high four-game losing streak, came against the out-of-it Maple Leafs with undersized goalie Artur Akhtyamov making his first NHL start. Two points are two points, and now the Islanders are one point behind the Flyers for third place in the Metropolitan Division.
With three games remaining in the regular season, what’s important to the Islanders is to ensure that this was not an illusion or the temporary effects of a bump associated with a change behind the bench. What DeBoer is teaching and tweaking must become a permanent part of the Islanders’ game.
“We’ve been talking all week about playoff habits,” DeBoer said. “You have to have them this time of the year to give yourself a chance to get in the playoffs. It wasn’t a perfect game, but I loved how fast we played. I loved some of the playoff habits we played with.”
Such as?
“It was simple things,” DeBoer said. “Coming back and stopping in defensive zone coverage. I thought we defended well [15 shots allowed]. Our reloads and our backchecking. We created a lot of offense off those reloads.”
Teams often play better under a new coach. There’s no magic to that, just common human nature from players looking to prove their value to the new boss.
“We’ve all been through it,” Brayden Schenn said. “You’ve got to showcase yourself to the new coach. It happens around the league all the time. A little bit of a new style and the guys bought in tonight and got the result we needed.”
DeBoer’s best coaching move since being hired on Sunday and having three practice days leading up to this game was not overloading his new players with information despite the urgency of the Islanders likely having to win all four games of their season-concluding homestand.
The speed at which they played was noticeably faster, but from an X’s-and-O’s standpoint, the changes seemed nuanced.
Former Islander Josh Bailey, serving as the Islanders’ radio analyst for Thursday’s game, told Newsday during the first intermission that nothing really jumped out to him in terms of a systems overhaul.
“No, it really didn’t,” Bailey said. “I’m sure Pete’s got a good bead on everything. If you come in with a whole new strategy and change things up, it’s probably not the right play. He’s been through this. He knows how to handle it. I thought they looked good.
“The little X’s-and-O’s stuff that you can talk about, that you can tweak, are relatively easy to do. Whether it be a certain set you get into or maybe little things through the neutral zone that you don’t really have to spend a whole lot of time on and the average fan probably wouldn’t really pick up on. There wouldn’t be a glaring difference.”
DeBoer benefited by having defenseman Tony DeAngelo return after a six-game absence because of a lower-body injury. Losing DeAngelo was like pulling the loose thread from a sweater. The defense and the transition game unraveled. He had two assists in an impactful 20:33 back in the lineup.
It all led to a more competent game than the Islanders showed during the 3-7-0 slide that ended Roy’s tenure.
One thing several Islanders did address before Thursday’s game was a report that Roy spoke too much about the four Stanley Cups he won as a Hall of Fame goalie — two with the Canadiens and two with the Avalanche — and that it wore thin on the players.
“That couldn’t be more untrue,” Mathew Barzal said. “If anything, I, and us as a group, love hearing the stories about the teams that he was on that won the Cup. Especially his team in Montreal. He’d always bring up how they were kind of an underdog all year. That kind of stuff fueled us. That report is completely ridiculous.”
Still, the Islanders have moved on from Roy to DeBoer.
And what they showed on Thursday must be more than a one-game coach’s bump.
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.
