Anders Lee explains how he handles being captain of the Islanders
Anders Lee of the New York Islanders is introduced before a game against the Florida Panthers at UBS Arena last October. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Anders Lee has been an Islander for a decade now, but there still is plenty of Minnesota in him.
So, yes, the former high school football star from suburban Minneapolis will be rooting for the Vikings on Sunday when they host the Giants in an NFL Wild Card game.
“It’s going to be tight, so it should be fun to watch, and I’m sure there will be bragging rights around town [at stake], too,” Lee said before Tuesday night’s game against the Dallas Stars at UBS Arena.
But when the Vikings are not playing the Giants or Jets, he does like to see the New York-area teams do well.
And why not? in his 11th season with the franchise, the last five as captain, Lee has become as much a team fixture as anyone in the current generation of Islanders.
In fact, only one captain in franchise history has exceeded the five-season run he currently is on — Denis Potvin for eight seasons ending in 1986-87.
What has the job been like compared to what Lee expected when he was named captain in October 2018?
“I think it’s very in line with what I thought it would be, but there’s always something new, something you didn’t expect,” he told Newsday. “There’s always something to be better at.
“You go home after every little bit and check in and see how things are going, see what the mood is, or after the year see what worked and what didn’t work.”
Lee self-scouts things he might have said or not said in the heat of the moment.
“I think leadership is always changing, the group's always changing, the mood’s always changing,” he said. “A big thing is you’ve got to listen to your guys. It’s an open room in here. It's always been that way. I think that’s the way to do it. So these guys have made it easy on me as well.”
Lee, 32, has faced some unique challenges during his captaincy, including three different home arenas, plus that 2020 playoff run in the NHL’s COVID-19 bubbles.
Not to mention the assorted problems that sabotaged the 2021-22 season.
“When you look back on it, there have been some interesting scenarios,” he said. “I think all of us were learning a few things about ourselves and how we can handle situations and ones that we handled well and ones that we didn’t.”
The flip side of navigating the challenges has been that Lee, who scored the Islanders' opening goal on Tuesday night that gave him 15 goals and 15 assists in the Islanders' first 42 games, has benefited from having an unusually stable core of veteran teammates along for the ride.
“Totally,” he said. “I'm able to lean on a lot of guys in this room and they lean on one another and that creates an environment I think of safety and one where guys can be honest with one another and have conversations that need to be had.
“At the same time, it's a group, too, that if something's not going right, you're not playing the way you need to be or making little mistakes, we’ve got a pretty smart group in here.”
Lee is in the fourth year of a seven-year contract, so he has a chance to match Potvin’s longevity as captain.
Asked how he sees his near future, he said, “I just want to keep this thing going. I love this game and I love being here on the Island and with this group.
“This is the place where we want to do something special. I'll be doing whatever I can to make sure, however long it takes, to make sure we get that, that we do the things that we've set out to do.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
