Perhaps the best way to understand how different the Islanders are playing under Patrick Roy is to start with this. In Monday’s 3-2 win over the Maple Leafs, the Isles iced the puck just twice.
Understand, this wasn’t a game the Islanders completely dominated. Especially in the second half, the Leafs launched a fierce attack. Ilya Sorokin made 35 saves. Toronto finished the game with 18 dangerous chances.
There were shifts, and plenty of them, where the Islanders seemed to be locked in their own zone.
But it never looked like they were going to sit back and win the game 2-1. And he was rarely satisfied with dropping the puck to the bottom of the ice.
That’s a far cry from the situation under Lane Lambert, when the Islanders seemed like they had to break to take the lead.
“I thought we did a really good job.” [defending]” said Roy. “After two periods of play, I think we had 21-22 shots in our favor, and it stayed that way for a long time. We felt like we were in control.
“We’ve been up and down the last 10 games, so when you’re confident you can be a little nervous. But I felt like the players were calm. They were under control. I love that too. was.”
Despite spending most of the game holding the lead, the Islanders went 5-on-5, nearly matching Toronto in shots, and the Leafs led 25-23 at the end of the night. .
The Isles also outscored the Leafs 3-0 at 5-on-5, with Toronto’s first goal coming on a 4-on-4 and the second on a power play.
Of course, the Islanders ultimately couldn’t hold on to a 2-1 lead against Toronto, with Oliver Wahlstrom taking a penalty kick and setting up the winning goal from Pierre Envall in the closing stages. I lost a point.
But all of this indicates that the 5-on-5 mentality has become much more attack-oriented under Roy, even when the Islanders are leading.
This is a small sample, just 60:58 over 5 games. But since Roy took over, the Islanders have created 47.6 percent of expected goals and 46.03 percent of scoring chances while holding a 5-on-5 lead, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Under Coach Lambert, he created just 4.44 percent of expected goals and 43.2 percent of scoring chances in 787:09 while leading 5-on-5.
It seems like a small difference. it’s not.
When a team is in the lead, it is normal to allow more scoring chances. But the Islanders pushed it to the extreme under Lambert, which tended to hurt them.
Under Lambert, they conceded the next goal in 22 of the 31 times they held a two-goal lead. Then they completely lost the lead in disasters to Detroit, Carolina, San Jose, New Jersey, Boston and Nashville.
If they had lasted even half of those games, the Islanders might have been in the playoffs by now and Lambert would still be the head coach.
Those consequences occur at the limit. An icing here, an offensive zone shift there can make a big difference.
At a time when Sorokin is taking more shots than any other goaltender in the league, any way the Islanders can take the pressure off him, even temporarily, is welcome.
Monday wasn’t perfect. The biggest thing the Isles could do to help was eliminate ill-timed penalties and fix their penalty kill, which ranked last in the entire league, and both of those problems persisted.
But a narrow 5-on-5 victory may have helped make the difference against the Leafs. And it may continue to pay dividends in the future.
