Underachievers

Have the Islanders been performing below expectations?

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Good Morning, Islanders Country.

It’s still too early to define this post-Barry Trotz era of Islanders hockey, but so far, it’s emulating the early aughts in many of the same mediocre ways.

Those teams, coached by Peter Laviollette and, later, Steve Stirling, made the playoffs in three consecutive seasons from 2002-2004 and then again in 2007. Outside of the memorable seven-game series against the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2002, they failed to play a Game 6 in the other three first-round series, all as the 8th seed against a heavily-favored top team in the Eastern Conference.

However, while those teams always seemed destined for early exits after battling for a playoff spot all season, much like this current Islanders team, you always felt that team was overachieving. After all, Oleg Kvasha and Trent Hunter led the 2003-04 team in scoring with 51 points! That same team finished 5th—you read that right—in goals, if you can believe it.

I don’t think that AT ALL with this current group of Islanders.

If the post-Trotz era is destined to achieve nothing more than first-round exits, it will be a significant underachievement. Perhaps that’s what has been frustrating about this and the past seasons. You look up and down the roster, and while there are plenty of teams with more talent and loftier expectations, this team should not be battling for their playoff lives every year, not with the number of former All-Stars and playoff-tested players they have. They’re not great, but they’re better than this, even if only 6-8 points better.

For this Islanders team to overachieve, it would not be to make the playoffs; it would be to go deep into the playoffs, as they did in 2020 and 2021. If making the playoffs is the only achievement, it’s not an achievement at all.

Let’s dive in.

📰 NEWS: The Flyers fired John Tortorella and named Brad Shaw, the former Islanders head coach, the interim head coach. Shaw, 60, has been the team’s associate head coach for the last three seasons. Tortorella was hired as the Flyers’ coach in June 2022. During his time in Philadelphia, he went 97-107-33.

Shaw joined the Isles as an assistant coach under Steve Stirling for the 2005–06 season. After the Islanders struggled to an 18–22–2 record to start the season, the club fired Stirling and named Shaw his replacement for the remainder of the season on January 12, 2006.

Power Outage

The Islanders are trying to make the playoffs despite a historically lousy power play. However, they’ve done it in their history - including recent history. The 2018-19 and 2022-23 Islanders are already two of the five teams that have scored the fewest power-play goals and made the postseason. This year’s team has 21 power-play goals with 11 games left in the regular season.

⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders have back-to-back games over the weekend against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday and the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday.

📊 STANDINGS: It was another favorable out-of-town scoreboard for the Islanders with the Philadelphia Flyers’ 6-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens.

📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, Simon Holmstrom is the first Swedish-born Islander to record 17 goals since the 1981-82 season when Bobby Nystrom had 22 goals and Anders Kallur had 18 goals. Nystrom (8x) and Kallur (3x) are the only Swedes with more goals in a season than Holmstrom.

🎥 ISLES REWIND: On March 28, 1992, the Islanders defeated the Presidents’ Trophy-winning New York Rangers 4-1 at Madison Square Garden. After a scoreless first period, the Islanders exploded for three goals against Mike Richter as Benoit Hogue, Derek King, and Claude Loiselle each found the net.

Then, in the third, Ray Ferraro put the game out of reach, converting a 2-on-1 with Hogue to extend the lead. Ferraro had a sensational ‘91-’92 season, scoring 40 goals and adding 40 assists for a career-high 80 points.

🔗 NY Islanders AHL affiliate historically bad at home this season in Bridgeport via Eyes on Isles “Bridgeport, with a record of 4-23-1-3 at home, has a chance to post the lowest AHL winning percentage of all-time with five home games left to play this season. The team’s current home win percentage sits at .194%, just a tick above a 1946-47 Philadelphia team that finished 3-24-5.”

🔗 Islanders can’t afford to ignore truth even after clawing way back into playoff race by Ethan Sears, New York Post “This, after all, is only a slightly modified version of the case made to stick with the group a year ago, when a full season of Patrick Roy behind the bench plus a couple new additions — Duclair and Max Tsyplakov — along with a healthier defense (whoops) was meant to result in serious improvement.”

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And we leave you with this…Cole Eiserman made a ridiculous move before scoring an absurd goal in BU’s win over Ohio State. “Eisey” scored twice and now leads all Division 1 freshmen in goals this season.

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