What's Wrong With The New York Islanders?

It's been a pretty rough go of it for the New York Islanders through the first almost three months of the season. Right now, as we get close to Christmas, the Islanders are 2nd to last in the Eastern Conference, with 9 wins and 25 points. The only other team in the conference that is worse than the Islanders is the Buffalo Sabres, as they have the exact same number of wins, 9, but 4 less overtime games than the Islanders.

Things haven't gone right for the Islanders over the last almost two months, with their last win in regulation coming on November 12th at home vs. the Nashville Predators. Since that win, the Islanders have won only twice in the last 16 games and both of those wins came in shootouts (11/16 vs. DET, 12/10  @ SJ). Sure the Islanders have been dealing with injuries, every hockey team has them to deal with. But there's more to it than that as to why the Islanders have been struggling. And lets start from the goaltending out.

The netminders have been doing OK at best. They aren't good, I'd go so far as to say they have looked average at best this year. Even that has been a bit of a stretch. Evgeni Nabokov had to deal with a groin injury and missed a month, but when he has played, he has looked below par from a season ago. Kevin Poulin hasn't been much better. I mean sure he has shown flashes that he can hang in the big leagues, but he has also shown at times that he doesn't look like a big league goalie. Andres Nilsson has look good in the playing time he has gotten this season. That's the best I can say for the goaltending this year.

Now for the defense. With a combination of them and how average the goalies have been, the Islanders have allowed the 2nd most goals against per game in the league, with the Edmonton Oilers the only club that's worse than them. Lubomir Visnovsky, the Islanders best defenseman, has played in only 8 games, missing time due to a concussion. So the bulk of the work load has fallen onto the shoulders of Travis Hamonic and Andrew MacDonald. They have done an OK job, but that's about it. Don't get me wrong they are good hockey players, but if they were on any solid, contending hockey teams like Chicago or Pittsburgh, those two guys would be a third defense pair not your top pair. The Islanders are using rookies and a bunch of throw away guys from other teams. That really can't happen if the Islanders expect to be a playoff team. The defense has to play better and get better.

Next is the scoring. Sure John Tavares is leading the team in all offensive catagories, that is what you expect from your best player. Tomas Vanek has done pretty well since coming to the Islanders in that trade. Frans Nielsen and Kyle Okposo have been playing pretty well this year. The rest of the forwards though have been a bit of a disappointment. Think about it, Michael Grabner has 2 goals on the year, both of which were scored in the season opener, and he hasn't scored a goal since. He went 25 games without registering a point before getting an assist last night. Same thing with Josh Bailey who went 12 games without a point before last night. This was a big concern coming into the year on offense, not having the consistent secondary scoring. Sure enough that is what has happened to the team this year.

Finally we come to question the effort and the coaching. More often than not the Islanders haven't played a full 60 minute hockey game. It happened quite a bit at the beginning of the season, but over the last month or so it hasn't been there. The full game effort just hasn't shown up. And coaching isn't much better. i know most of the players like Jack Cappuano, but I'm sorry I think he's a little soft as a coach. He just doesn't show much fire on the bench, and teams at times need the coach to show a little more emotion on the bench, as it will get their players more into the game.

How can the Islanders fix these problems? Well coaching, I can't really explain it at the moment. Scoring, the Islanders just have to play relaxed and get pucks on net. Don't worry about trying to make the perfect play just shoot the puck on goal, it will eventually go in. Defensively, the Islanders need to do a better job of picking up their assignments in their own end. There have been too many times where players from opposing teams have been left open in front of the Islanders net to do with what they will with the puck. The Islanders defense has got to do better at picking a man up.

If the Islanders don't start getting their game together, they they will have another very high draft picki in this years draft.