I’d like to call it marginal progress, but the Islanders feel like their league-worst penalty kill is starting to show signs of improvement.
“I think we’re getting more used to it because of some of the changes we’ve made,” Cal Clutterbuck said Thursday before the Isles put together their third perfect night in penalty shootouts in the last 13 games. Ta. “I think every penalty kill has a part of the structure that you have to get right most of the time. Once you get that structure right, you can start making so-called hockey reads from that position in the structure. I think there’s always going to be adjustments to the system, but we’re getting better at being in the right spots and trying to take extra reads from there and turn over more pucks. I think that there.”
The Islanders’ penalty kill, which they had twice against the Red Wings, came to great effect in Thursday’s eventual 5-3 victory over Detroit. That included Pierre Engvall’s first goal of the season, scored in the second half.
It also pushed the Isles’ penalty kill total to 11 of their past 14 games. That’s still below league average at 78.57 percent, but significantly higher than the 71.35 percent he posted all season.
At this point, the bar has been lowered enough that the Islanders can happily hover around the league average mark of 79.2 percent for the rest of the season.
In fact, this would represent a dramatic improvement after being historically bad for much of the campaign.
“[Assistant coaches] Doug [Houda] and [Benoit Desrosiers] We worked hard to convert the penalties and I was happy to see the result tonight,” said coach Patrick Roy. “They worked hard to get this and turn it around, so it makes sense. We know we need to cut down on chances, but I thought the players were committed to that. I think we can build around that.”
Ilya Sorokin and Ryan Purok were given the day off to rest up from Friday’s practice, with equipment manager Lenny DiCostanzo filling in between the pipes alongside Semyon Varlamov.
Sorokin is expected to start his third straight game Saturday against the Bruins.
Team statistician Eric Hornig said Thursday was the Islanders’ first Leap Day win since 1984, when they beat the original Jets 4-3 in Winnipeg.
