Islanders lacking confidence on power play
Call it a crisis of confidence - the Islanders certainly do.
Their 5-2 loss to the Bruins on Thursday night was their 18th defeat in 19 games. They've gone a franchise record-tying 12 straight games without a power-play goal and their streak is 0-for-41.
The Islanders' rap sheet this season has been crushingly reliable, with only the numbers seeming to change.
It's no big surprise, then, when guys such as John Tavares and Matt Moulson and P.A. Parenteau start talking about lack of confidence, or second-guessing, or what it'll take to get out of this funk.
The concern now is whether these Islanders (5-16-5) have become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially when it comes to the power play. For a team that has scored only 55 goals all season (29th in the league), the power-play outage has taken on morale-crushing resonance. They have 16 man-up goals this season, tied for 21st in the league, entering Saturday night's game against Atlanta at Nassau Coliseum.
Parenteau, for one, didn't hesitate to agree that the psychological aspect of the game has been affecting play.
"No doubt about it," he said. "It's a big part of any sport. Confidence is a big part of it. We play with confidence five-on-five, and we're a lot more confident when we're making plays [then]. We're at the point where we don't even want a power play, almost. We're going to get out of it, though. Confidence goes and comes back."
Tavares, who hasn't scored a power-play goal since Oct. 27 and has one goal in the last eight games, said after practice Friday that for all the attempts at optimism, lack of execution is taking its toll. He nearly scored a man-up goal on the back door in the second period of Thursday's game, but the rebound skittered off the boards to set up a goal by Brad Marchand that gave the Bruins the lead.
"I'll be honest, it's really hard," Tavares said. "You work so hard to be at this level and to prepare and do things well and have things go your way, and when it doesn't, sometimes you play mind games with yourself."
Even so, coach Jack Capuano tended to disagree. "I don't think" it's a confidence issue, he said. "I don't even know what confidence really means when you break it down. I think mentally, it's just a little draining on the guys . . . Somehow, some way, hopefully these bounces are going to turn in our favor."
Moulson said it is a question of breaking through whatever invisible barrier seems to be hindering their play. "We just have to get back to that [winning] mentality," he said. "At some point, we're going to really have a breakthrough game and hopefully carry that confidence into a streak."
Until then, the current issues are "something we talk about," he said. "It's something that's in all of our play right now, not just the power play."
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