Islanders' brand of tight-knit hockey key to recent success

“Connected.”

If you’ve read about the Islanders’ play lately or listened to recent interviews from coach Patrick Roy or his players, you’ve probably heard that word a fair amount.

Used in a sentence: The Islanders are playing connected hockey.

Meaning: The players are positionally supporting each other as a unit of five on the ice consistently and passes are going stick blade to stick blade rather than awry. Also: All units — five-on-five, power play and penalty kill — are making a positive impact.

Result: The Islanders are playing faster hockey (a necessity in the NHL), are breaking the puck out of their defensive zone quickly and cleanly and are able to sustain momentum shift to shift as one group of players can build upon the forecheck or physicality of the players returning to the bench.

The Islanders have won five of seven and are 2-2-0 on their seven-game homestand with a chance to win three straight for just the second time this season when they face the Flyers on Friday night. Yet the Islanders (19-20-7) are still in last place in the Metropolitan Division and seven points out of the Eastern Conference’s second-wild card spot with six teams ahead of them at the start of Wednesday’s play.

Question: What kept the Islanders from playing this kind of connected hockey sooner?

“I don’t know,” Mathew Barzal said “I really don’t know. It’s been an issue of ours, just being connected on the ice. I don’t think there’s an answer. If we had one, we’d be connected every game.”

Of course, that’s the crux of the Islanders’ rocky season. Even on this homestand, there have been wild swings in the quality of their play. The homestand started with shockingly poor losses to the Senators and Flyers, two teams the Islanders are chasing.

“Sometimes it’s the game of hockey,” Anders Lee said. “There’s flow in every game. The other night [a 5-3 loss to the Flyers last Thursday] with all the whistles and penalties and guys have got to go kill. I think that plays a big part of it.

“When we’re not connected as a group, when we have too much separation, whether it’s coming out of the zone or even in the offensive zone, you don’t have that support for a second touch or a second puck. Like anyone else, you struggle to get the puck back or make a clean play. You’re just chipping out to live another day, which is fine at times but you’re not creating enough momentum and push to get a cycle.”

The Islanders are 6-5-0 since the NHL’s holiday break and the overall quality of play in those 11 games — the bad losses to the Senators and Flyers duly noted —– represents their best stretch of the season. Roy has structured his recent practices to put the players under pressure in scrimmages to force them to play connected.

Sustaining momentum by staying connected is crucial. But it’s certainly not guaranteed, particularly if president/general manager Lou Lamoriello starts moving assets such as pending unrestricted free agents Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri before the trade deadline on March 7.

“We play north, we move it fast and we have success,” Roy said. “When you have success, I like to think you like to repeat that.”

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

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.