Doug Weight takes blame for Islanders' power-play outage
New York Islanders interim head coach Doug Weight walks off the ice after his players 3-0 win against the Dallas Stars in an NHL hockey game at Barclays Center on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Doug Weight’s on-the-job training extends to the power play, which was his baby during his five-plus seasons as assistant coach before taking over for Jack Capuano on Tuesday.
Weight admitted he was a bit “overwhelmed” in his coaching debut Thursday night, when the Isles went 0-for-7 on the power play to extend their skid to 0-for-21 entering Saturday night’s game against the Kings.
“I take a lot of the blame because we had trouble on the entries. They were standing up at the blue line. We pre-scouted and talked about it, but I don’t know that I gave the best remedy for it,” Weight said. “It was a good challenge for me and I probably didn’t react well enough. We’ve talked about personnel and I just know we have the skill to do it.”
Weight used some unusual personnel on the second power-play unit Thursday night, putting Calvin de Haan and Dennis Seidenberg at the points with John ny Boychuk and Travis Hamonic sidelined. Andrew Ladd being out also brought Shane Prince and Anthony Beauvillier to the second unit.
The Islanders converted on their first power-play chance Saturday night and another in the third period, so perhaps the 18 shots they had on the seven chances Thursday advanced their work rather than hindered it.
Three still out
Weight hoped to have one, two or all three of Ladd, Boychuk and Cal Clutterbuck available Saturday night. He didn’t get any of them back, with two upper-body injuries and one lower-body injury lingering to keep them out a third game. It’s three straight for Ladd and Clutterbuck and three of the last four for Boychuk.
Travis Hamonic (knee) remained on injured reserve. His injury is a longer-term issue.
