Lane Lambert didn't care much for analytics while coaching the Islanders.
That part of the organization's philosophy will change with Patrick Roy benched.
Roy cited advanced statistics multiple times, especially when identifying areas the Islanders need to improve on, ahead of Sunday's first game against the Islanders, a 3-2 win over Dallas.
“To a certain extent, I don't lie,” he says. “That’s something I said to the players a little bit: Last in the league in breakouts, last in the league in puck possession in their own zone, last in the league in puck possession in their own zone. [offensive] zone. There are some things to do. ”
In fact, Roy has access to personal data, but the publicly available data does not reflect favorably on the islanders.
The team entering Sunday's game ranked 29th in expected goals, 30th in scoring chances and 30th in high-danger chances, according to Natural Stat Trick's tally.
Once perfect in their own zone, the club's defensive structure has collapsed this year under Lambert, resulting in Ilya Sorokin taking more shots than any other goalkeeper in the league.
It's probably no coincidence that Sorokin's play declined after finishing second in last year's Vezina Trophy voting.
Therefore, strengthening the defensive zone will be one of Roy's top priorities.
“We're going to start worrying about defense,” he said. “I've always believed that if you can break out the puck well, you'll spend less time in your own zone. There's no magic recipe to prevent turnovers, even if you have more turnovers. Most of the time, turnovers turn into pretty good scoring chances. It will be.
“We want to talk a lot about breakouts and D-zone coverage so we can do a good job in those areas.”
Roy doesn't intend to completely overhaul the team's systems on the fly, but he does want to make some changes there and has already started implementing small adjustments.
“Days in Colorado” [from 2013-16]”If you look at the analytics, our team was giving up a lot of puck possession in the D-zone,” Roy said. “And for the past seven years, I've been thinking about what I want to do. So I believe in what I want to bring here.
“It was a very good learning experience for me because the message was different from what it was back then.Fortunately, I had the opportunity to do it with my juniors. [coaching the QMJHL Quebec Remparts], it worked very well. I believe it will be the same at the NHL level.”
