What Happened To The New York Islanders?

What went wrong here? When the season started, there was a lot of hope and optimism about the New York Islanders, a team that was on the up and up. Going into their opening round series against the Capitals, the Islanders were looking to break a 21 year drought between playoff series wins, the longest such drought in NHL history. The team was coming off one of its best seasons in recent memory, going above and beyond expectations anybody had for the team. This club was looking for a great way to close this era of Islanders hockey, and send off Nassau Coliseum with a cup. Well that didn't exactly happen, as the Islanders fell in a hard-fought, seven-game series with the Washington Capitals. This was a series the Islanders had plenty of chances to win this series, but they had shot themselves in the foot, not only in the series but even leading up to the series.

I've talked about this before, it would benefit a team, more often than not, to go into postseason play hot. That wasn't the case with the Islanders. They stumbled in. What we saw from the club early in the year, scoring depth and punch, just wasn't there at the end of the year. Sure John Tavares finished in the top ten in the league in scoring, sure Brock Nelson was in the top ten in rookie goal scoring. But otherwise, there wasn't much hope, or balance, in the forward lines. The team couldn't find the same magic late in the year than they had in the start of the year, which was kind of sad. There's no denying that there's a lot of talent on the hockey team, that was evident through most of the regular season and at times in the playoffs. Games one three and six of the series, the games in which the Islanders actually won, gave you hope and a reason to believe that this team was really on the verge of making that push to the next level and finally getting over the hump, so to speak. But, alas, reality came crashing down on the Isles, allowing the holes once again to be shown.

One thing that really stuck out to me was the powerplay, or should I say lack there of. There's no way possible that a team can really do damage when it goes 0 for 14 on the powerplay in a series. 0 for 14 on the man advantage. Let that sink in. Most teams that are even remotely successful will find a way to bury the puck at least one time on the man advantage. An issue that I'm sure the Islanders will look to address in the offseason.

Then there's the fact that the team had trouble in the series of playing a full 60 minute hockey game. Not sure what it is, but the Islanders had a tendancy to show up in spurts or net even at all, not just during this series, but during the regular season as well. there were times during game seven where it seemed like the Capitals could do whatever they wanted with the puck and the Isles skated around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. It was really a tough thing to watch. I know it does happens to a team where once in a while, teams will have a bad game and be on their heels. But it happened more than once to the Isles in this series, none more evident than I'd say most of game seven. It was almost too painful to watch. I'm sorry but in game seven the Islanders had no heart what so ever. To make it even worse, not only did they not show heart but they couldn't even generate offense. Eleven total shots on goal in the entire game by a hockey team. To make matters worse, of those eleven shots, three of them came off the sticks of forwards. For a hockey team to be a success, they need to have the forwards fire the puck on net. Caps goalie Braden Holtby wasn't tested at all in game seven.

To go along with the lack of heart and secondary scoring was inexperience. While players like Johnny Boychuk, Nick Leddy and Lubomir Visnovsky have extensive playoff experience, the Isles roster was filled with players who had appeared in just a handful of games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Guys like Tavares, Okposo, Bailey, Clutterbuck, Martin and a few others have a little bit of experience but not enough. Some of those key leaders had played no more than half a dozen playoff games in the NHL. Throw in the fact that three key young guns in Brock Nelson, Andres Lee and Ryan Strome had never played in a Stanley Cup Playoff game before, and it makes it easy to see why the Isles faultered in certain situations. A more experienced team would have made a stronger showing in Game 7 and probably would have put the Caps away in Game 2 as well.

There was one bright spot in the series and that was goalie Jaroslav Halak. He played out of his mind for the Isles, hands down he was their best player. As good as Halak was, he can only do so much. The fact that the Islanders were missing their top two defenseman was a big blow. Travis Hamonic wasn't available in the series due to a knee injury suffered near the end of the regular season, whicih turned out to be a HUGE loss for the team as Hamonic had been the Isles best defender, and all around defender to boot, all season long. Then to make matters worse, Lubomir Visnovsky was taken out during Game 4 on Tom Wilson’s questionable hit. Visnovsky was the team’s most experienced defenseman, a big plus on a squad full of younger players. He also was a good passer and a key component of the second power-play unit. Without Visnovsky, the Isles lost a lot of intangibles and an already thin defense was compromised further. Not having those two guys there, and then to lose Calvin De Hann near the end of game five made it even tougher on the team.

Don't get me wrong the Islanders had an outstanding season. Nothing can ever be taken away from them for the year they had. Still it was a bitter pill to swallow to see the team go down the way they did. A tough way to close the doors on Nassau Coliseum.