Head Scratcher On Long Island

Across all sports, head coaches are usually the ones who take the blame if a team doesn't do well. Hockey is no exception to that. This one leaves a lot of people both fans of the team and fans from other organizations, are scratching their heads over this one. Earlier today, the New York Islanders parted ways with their head coach Barry Trotz.

Trotz had been coaching the Islanders for four seasons now. He made the playoffs in each of the first three seasons, including back to back conference finals appearances. This year was the first time the Islanders missed the playoffs under his leadership as coach. That, among a few other reasons, lead to the Islanders dismissing Trotz as coach. He was let go after winning 152 games as the Islanders bench boss.

There were such high expectations on the Islanders this season, after going to those two straight third round appearances. This year it fell flat. Long road trip to start the year off before opening a new building for home games. Long losing streak early in the year. Lack of scoring and an older lineup. All of those factors played into the Islanders falling flat on their face under Trotz this season, costing him his job.

Was this on Trotz? Or is it on upper management?

As for Trotz, maybe Islanders upper management was right in that it might be time for a new voice in the locker rook. That's a small part of it. Maybe Trotz coaching style had gone a little flat with this group here on Long Island.

That could be, but from where I sit, most of this falls on President and General Manager Lou Lamarillo.

To be fair, its not on either Trotz or Lou for what happens on the ice. Meaning that neither guy can put the puck in the back of the net, or stop the other team from scoring. That's on the players. But since you can't get rid of the players, somebody has to take the fall and in this case it was Barry. But was he really to blame for this season? Not to me he wasn't. This falls right where it should. On Lou.

Lou failed the Islanders this season in my mind. he had a golden opportunity to build off the success of the last two seasons by adding key pieces. A top scoring offensive threat to play with Barzal. Didn't happen. Sign free agents. Did that but older ones. Team was the oldest team in the league in average age this year. It felt like the club was taking a big step backwards. Sure there were flashes at times like this team still had that mojo that we've seen the last two seasons. But the consistency wasn't quite there the same way it had been the two seasons prior.

Somebody had to take the fall, and it was Trotz. Wrong guy to be outted there Lou