Good Morning, Islanders Country.
The Islanders’ opponent tonight, the Edmonton Oilers, fired their coach on Thursday. Dave Tippett is out and Jay Woodcroft, coach of their affiliate Bakersfield Condors will be behind the bench. So, not only will the Islanders need to contend with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, but also the new coach bounce teams usually get when making a change. Yikes.
It won’t be a surprise, even with Kyle Palmieri due back, if Barry Trotz decides to stay with his unlikely line combinations that produced six goals in Vancouver. But as Ethan Sears points out in the New York Post, the Islanders were actually out-shot and out-chanced at five-on-five against the Canucks by game’s end. Was the offensive success a fluke? Can those lines survive a second full game? We’ll find out if they can do it again.
Coming up, Barry Trotz self-reflects and we look at the never-ending Josh Bailey divide. Plus, it’s the 11 year anniversary of “Fight Night” and 50 years since the Nassau Coliseum doors first opened.
Let’s dive in.
📰 NEWS: Prior to Wednesday’s game, Barry Trotz was open and somewhat vulnerable with the media regarding his shortcomings in the first half of the season. “I think you have to self-reflect, Trotz said. Some guys I’ve given opportunity (to) have let me down, and I stuck with them because of what they’ve done in the past, or what I think they may do. Sometimes, I’ve had a little slower trigger finger on certain things.”
We’ve long known Trotz has a long, sometimes very long leash with veteran players, especially those that have been through the battles with him in recent years. Yet, this was the closest he’s come in saying it out loud and hinting that he failed to push the right button or maybe worse, didn’t push any button at all.
Kevin Kurz wrote more about this in The Athletic:
Without naming any names, the blatant suggestion is that Trotz spent some time thinking about how he’s deployed certain players this season. Perhaps, for example, someone such as Josh Bailey, who now has three goals in 35 games, or Kyle Palmieri, with one goal in 29 games, or Zdeno Chara, whose advanced age seems to have caught up with him, are going to have to do a little more moving forward if they are to maintain their places in the active lineup and in key roles.
There are probably others, too, as the Islanders’ place in the standings is due to an abundance of players simply underachieving. But like many veteran coaches who have had success with a certain group, Trotz suggested he has been reluctant to be too hard on those veteran players because of the equity they’ve banked over the years
For now, the aforementioned veterans all stayed in the line-up, just on different lines. The “put in a blender” combinations paid dividends for one game, but it’s hard to imagine Cal Clutterbuck on the first line being sustainable or Anthony Beauvillier being a fit with Matt Martin and Casey Cizikas longterm. Even if these lines are short-lived, the hope is that invigorates some players when they are taking shifts with familiar faces once again.
🗣 JUST JOSHIN’ YA: The two most polarizing topics for Islanders fans are the Fisherman Jersey and Josh Bailey. Just like the sweater, the same argument has been happening for years, fans are dug in on their side, they are not changing minds and there can’t be a middle-ground! You must pick a side!
To emphasize this point, this season two new Twitter accounts popped up. One “@JoshBaileySucks” is dedicated to showing every turnover, every lazy play, every failed one-timer on loop.
The other, “@JoshBaileyGoat” is quick to point out every secondary assist, every heady play in the neutral zone, and that No.12 is currently third, yes third on the team in points with 20 (3 goals, 17 assists). Oh, and did you know he was a 2018 All-Star?
Personally, I probably fall into the “Bailey defender” camp. Mostly, because I feel he is judged against a standard that should never be attached to him. We know what he is after FOURTEEN SEASONS, the good, the bad, and the ugly. For years, coaches and teammates spoke glowingly about his hockey sense, his play without the puck, all attributes that I put weight into while acknowledging the shortcomings in his game.
But this season just feels different, right? Maybe not to the detractors. For them it’s validation! But for fans like myself, that jokingly call him elite and somewhat, but not really joking about him being in the Islanders’ Hall of Fame (I think that happens), his play has been hard to defend. At 32, he looks a step slow and his decision-making has been rookie-like at times. There have been too many turnovers and took few shots taken (including the one you may recall with a wide-open net).
As a seasoned veteran and the longest-tenured Islander, Barry Trotz doesn’t mention Bailey by name and he’s always in the lineup, sometimes elevated to the first line. But given his recent comments, you wonder if the coach shares the same view of both supporters and naysayers. That, at least for right now, Bailey needs to do more to earn and keep his spot in the lineup that long has been guaranteed.
⏭ NEXT UP:
📊 STANDINGS:
📚 SOUND SMART: Two seasons ago, the Islanders went on a magical run in the Toronto bubble. Per, Eric Hornick, the Islanders have thrived north of the border.
The Isles have won all four games that they have played in Canada this season, winning the games by a combined score of 19-8. They have scored at least five goals in three of those games (11/4 in Montreal, 12/7 in Ottawa, and last night vs Vancouver) – the only three times that they have scored at least five goals in a game this season. It is the first time that the Isles have won four straight games in Canada since winning six straight between March 10, 2014, and January 2, 2015, and the first time that they have done so in a single season since 1988-89.
🗓 ISLE REMEMBER: On Feb. 11, 2011, it was a fight-filled laugher as the Islanders defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins 9-3 at the Nassau Coliseum. The teams combined for 65 penalties that totaled 346 minutes. There were 10 ejections, 15 fighting majors, and 20 misconducts in the game, setting records for both teams for most combined penalty minutes and left few players around to finish it.
Things were so heated, that a fence between the two dressing rooms was shut during a hallway lockdown. From the New York Times, months later “Afterward, the Penguins’ owner, Mario Lemieux, denounced what happened as a “travesty” and a “sideshow.” He criticized the N.H.L. for what he saw as an insufficient disciplinary response and declared that he would “rethink” whether he wanted to “be a part of” the league.”
The game remains memorable for the Penguins too, the SB Nation site Pensburgh put out a blow-by-blow account of the lead-up, many undercards and main-event fights on the 10-year anniversary.
"It was a pretty entertaining affair, and we'll take the two points," said Islanders forward John Tavares. "I've never seen anything like that before. It just wouldn't stop. But it just shows that we'll do anything for each other."
🔗 Islanders hope for carryover effect from solid win over Canucks when they face Oilers by Andrew Gross, Newsday “Wednesday night’s win brought the Islanders within 15 points of the Eastern Conference’s final playoff spot and they’ll conclude their first half of the schedule against the Oilers. The Oilers, too, have struggled despite having Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, two of the NHL’s most dynamic offensive playmakers. Back-to-back home losses to Vegas and Chicago coming out of the All-Star break finally cost coach Dave Tippett his job on Thursday.
🔗 Schwartz: Islanders head to Edmonton looking to keep up the Canadian momentum by Peter Schwartz, WFAN.com “The two points in Vancouver were huge, and the Islanders need to keep stockpiling the points, as they still have a massive mountain to climb to get back into the playoff race. Heading into Thursday night’s NHL schedule, the Islanders find themselves 15 points behind Boston for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, although they have four games in hand and a head-to-head matchup with Bruins next week at UBS Arena.”
And we leave you with this…today is the 50th anniversary of the first event hosted at the Nassau Coliseum, a New York Nets basketball game against the Pittsburgh Condors.
In Newsday, Neil Best has a great story on the ‘bare bones’ Coliseum that lacked certain amenities, such as concession stands and … seats.
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