ISLAND BREEZE
Losing Tavares forced Isles to become a team
Lou Lamoriello won’t say he’s been surprised. But at the same time, there is no way he saw this coming.
How could he?
When the New York Islanders lost John Tavares to free agency shortly after Lamoriello took over as the team’s general manager, it was natural to think the worst and expect that the franchise was in store for a long and painful rebuild.
No one could have imagined the Islanders would somehow get better. No one could have predicted that they would be leading the Metropolitan Division midway through the season, or that they would have more points than the Tavares-led Maple Leafs.
If so, fans might not have spent the summer burning the former Islanders captain’s jersey in effigy.
“Well, let me put it this way,” said Lamoriello, choosing his words very carefully. “If somebody had wrote on a piece of paper that you’d have this record at this time of the year, I think you’d sign off right away. I don’t think that’s something you have to apologize for saying.”
If anyone needs to apologize, it’s the pundits who picked the Islanders to miss the playoffs — or worse, who believed they would finish dead-last. Then again, it was a reasonable expectation at the time.
Even with Tavares, the Islanders were a team in need of change. They finished in 11th place in the Eastern Conference standings last season and had failed to reach the playoffs in six of the past nine years.
So when the 28-year-old chose to sign with Toronto rather than repeat the cycle of losing, no one outside of New York could really blame him. But no one also thought it would be the best thing to happen to the beleaguered franchise.
At the same time, this wasn’t necessarily a case of addition by subtraction.
Losing Tavares, who has 30 goals and 53 points in 48 games this season and was chosen for the all-star game, didn’t make the Islanders a better team. But a strange thing has happened since he chose to sign with the Maple Leafs.
The Islanders were forced to become a team.
Rather than rely on one player to carry the load, the Islanders are receiving production from just about everyone on a roster that seems stitched together from an expansion draft. No one in New York has scored 20 goals and there isn’t a player on the team ranked among the top-40 in league scoring. But when it comes to depth, Lamoriello’s belief that the logo on the front of the jersey is far more important than the name on the back is why this team is having so much success.
The Islanders have eight players who have reached double-digits in goals, as well as a goalie tandem that has combined for the best goalsagainst average and save percentage. They have become this year’s version of the Golden Knights — minus a home record aided by the Vegas flu.
With half the season in the books, the Islanders are leading the Metropolitan with 62 points. They have the second-best record in the Eastern Conference, with more wins than the Washington Capitals, San Jose Sharks and Nashville Predators entering yesterday’s action.
They’re not rebuilding — they’re rebelling against everyone who counted them out just because they lost their captain and franchise star.
“First of all, I don’t think it has to do with anything of the past,” Lamoriello said of the Tavares effect. “I think it’s all with the players who have
accepted their roles to have success. It’s been a collective, it’s been different people on different nights and it’s been people enjoying each other’s success. That’s been the one thing that I’ve been most impressed about.”
A lot of New York’s success can be attributed to head coach Barry Trotz, who left the Capitals after winning a Stanley Cup and has since instilled a defence-first approach to a team that gave up the most shots in the league last year. New York is now ninth in that category, while goalies Robin Lehner and Thomas Greiss are among the best in the league.
Offensively, Mathew Barzal leads the team with 44 points and Anders Lee has a teamleading 18 goals. But it’s been the lesser lights, such as Brock Nelson (16 goals and 31 points) and fourth-line centre Casey Czikas (11 goals), who have made the difference in Tavares’ absence.
“They’re doing something that I really like, which is they’re competing against themselves to be the best every single night,” said Lamoriello.
“They’re not competing against anyone else. They’re receptive to what’s being asked. We have to just make sure that continues and let the end result take care of itself. But there’s nothing to rest on. Nothing’s been accomplished as of yet.”
Indeed, this is not a team that is in a position to coast.
The Islanders, who shot to the top of the division after winning five in a row, have just a three-point lead on the second-place Columbus Blue Jackets and are only eight points from being out of a playoff spot.
Things can change in a hurry. Lamoriello knows that. But he also knows that a team everybody counted out is now in a position to do the impossible. And he isn’t sorry one bit.
“This is a difficult league, this is a league of parity,” said Lamoriello. “We haven’t really done anything yet. We haven’t even reached the 50-game mark. There’s a lot of hockey left, so we’re not getting excited.”