SALT LAKE CITY — Lou Lamoriello said Thursday morning when reporters entered the Islanders' locker room and found a rubber chicken toy in Anders Lee's stall, the team was still unidentified. He had just admitted that he was looking for one.
The captain found it unclaimed inside T-Mobile Arena.
“It’s coming to us, too,” he said.
Hours after the Islanders defeated the Golden Knights, 4-0, the Chicken went 1-0 and was ceremonially presented to Brock Nelson after the game.
Perhaps if the Islanders can continue their fledgling two-game winning streak in Saturday's first trip to Utah, the Chickens will be the part of the identity they're looking for. At least it's a pretty good mascot.
As far as on-ice identity goes, what the Islanders showed Thursday could be a pretty good starting point, chicken or not.
“We're a team that plays a simple, hard game of hockey,” Lee said before the game, making it clear that the Islanders have become a brand over the last few years but have accomplished little in the first half of the season. Ta. “That's who we are. That's what we've been for a long time. We're not going to do anything flashy. We'll have some time with some guys, but we're not a flashy team. Five or six. We're not going to put one in the net. We're a structured team and we have the ability to work hard every night and win close games. And that's been our identity for a long time.”
For a long time, yes. This season, it's unlikely, but could peak as late as Thursday.
In Lamoriello's mind, it's a result of injuries and the collapse of a fourth line of Matt Martin, Casey Cizikas and Cal Clutterbuck, and the Islanders have shed much of their identity in the past.
“I think we’ve been looking for that a little bit,” Lamoriello said. “We don't have a team yet, so we haven't been able to really see what's going on. Identity has always been focused on our fourth line, and that fourth line. I think it was a reference to how the line played. I think we put it together and we're a little more skilled. Our identity is you play consistently every night and we're successful. We looked for it a little.”
If you ask the players, there doesn't seem to be a problem that they don't know what kind of team they want to be. That's not all that surprising considering how similar the composition of this roster is to past seasons. Rather, the question is whether they can still be that team on a nightly basis.
“Maybe at this point we can look back and say it wasn't enough,” Nelson said. “I don't know if it's difficult, but [to establish]but the games are different every night. Many things can happen. … It’s still not good enough because at the end of the day, we have to go out there and win games. It's not something we can't do. ”
If Thursday proved anything, it's that there's still a lot of belief in the locker room.
And while the Islanders had a dismal first half of the season with a 16-18-7 record, there's still time to turn things around.
One of the organizational talking points heading into the game was that the Islanders had been feeling an uptick in play since Christmas, although the results still weren't good enough.
Coach Patrick Roy said after the game that this victory felt like the culmination of all of that.
“All you want as a coach is to see consistency, and that's really our goal tonight,” Roy said. “This was a great team effort. Everyone played really well. I thought our 'D' moved the puck fast, jumped on the rush and made great decisions.” ”
Holding Las Vegas scoreless in their own building looked a lot like the Islanders of old. Maybe there's something magical about chicken.
“We talked about it this morning. We know who we are and how we're going to be successful,” Lee said after the game. “I thought we did a great job tonight.”
