It is no secret to Isles fans that the Power-Play has been sub-par so far this season. Whether it be missed passes, lost faceoffs, or careless errors, it seems like things always go wrong. Many fans have been frustrated with Power-Play coach Scott Gomez, but at the end of the day he’s not on the ice, and the people who are on the ice need to do more.
Currently, the Isles rank 26th in the league in terms of Power-Play percentage, scoring only 19 goals on 121 attempts (15.7%). Some games, the Isles are getting a lot of chances and just have gotten unlucky, but it seems like the Power-Play has cost them a decent amount of points, most recently in Tuesday night’s loss to Carolina, where they went 0 for 3 and had a chance to take the lead on their last attempt with under five minutes to go in regulation.
If the Islanders want to get into the playoffs, special teams will be a major factor. With players like Mathew Barzal, Josh Bailey, Devon Toews, Josh Ho-Sang (when he’s up), who are the perfect players to lead a Power-Play, the Isles simply need to start putting the puck in the net. They always seem to look for the extra pass instead of putting pucks on net, which has been an issue that Barry Trotz has discussed, especially when the Isles went on that horrible Power-Play skid towards the end of November. To put it simply, I believe that the deciding factor between whether or not the Isles make the playoffs will be if they can get their Power-Play to start playing more consistently.

David Lazar