The roster of people who didn’t talk on the farewell day said it all.
Anthony Duclair, who didn’t play the final eight games of the season after Patrick Roy called him in very strict conditions, was not heading for reporters.
Roy didn’t talk either.
Nor did General Manager Rumoliello.
Pierre Enval was not there because his wife was giving birth to a baby – the absence of excuses, clear, but it is quite a thing on the nose.
There is a denunciation of this unfortunate islander season, but it’s no surprise that four or all of these were on their wrong ends.
For now, there is not much answer as to how the club will move forward after missing out on the playoffs.
Theme of the person spoke on Saturday: Islanders felt they lacked consistency and identity. The failure to close the game early in the season has grown over and over again. After a power play and a penalty kill, each ranked 31st in the league, both were special teams.
“It’s self-confidence,” Casey Scizicus said. “I think you learn and know that you can close the game when you need it. You can give up on a slow goal, give up on leads and things like that, and clean up your team when you need it, with confidence that you can get the job done to yourself and our group.
Not particularly to the players themselves, but it’s been a long time since the islanders consistently performed their style of play and then rode two NHL Final Fours under Barry Trotz.
Playoffs or not, they are now in the mushy middle of the league for four seasons.
Game closures, penalty kills, power plays – these are not new issues.
The Bo Horvat deal is to fix the power play.
It was 2½ seasons ago.
Hiring Roy was supposed to help with all of the above, but that wasn’t the case. The fate of the head coach must be decided quickly right now with the NHL coaching carousel moving forward in earnest on Saturday.
“I feel like I’m coming out of camp, I felt I was ready for the season,” Kyle Palmieri said when asked behind the bench what Roy made in his first full season. “There were some things we had to adjust on the spot when he came last year. We had more time to meet up and play in preseason games and stuff like that, so everyone felt a little more comfortable. But when it comes to coordination, there are probably things we need to do to become a better team and a more complete team.”
Just like I did last month ago, it would have been stretch to consider Roy on a hot seat.
The way the islanders crashed out of the season is that in addition to what was essentially banished Duclair at the beginning of April, which was on Lamoriello’s head throughout the season, putting a big question mark there.
Saturday’s player parade also cites issues that have essentially remained unchanged a year or two years ago.
Roy is clearly far from the only perpetrator there, not the only person whose work is at issue.
Lamoriello built this roster and stood behind the core for many years when results weren’t up to standard.
Many individual players did not perform as expected.
Who is unknown to who, but if the past few farewell days conveyed mostly rebellious self-belief, the atmosphere on Saturday – in fact, the atmosphere since the trade deadline felt like an acceptance of change that was coming.
“You go to consistency. I think we’ve missed it all year round,” Anders Lee said. “I think there were moments when we didn’t get a good game together and we didn’t get results. There were moments when we didn’t close the game. We can identify some, but we’ll start with them.
“You start playing consistent hockey over and over again every night, the results come. We tried our best to get to it, but we weren’t enough for it.”
And now the islanders go home.
