GDT: GDT #31 New York Islanders vs Chicago Blackhawks | December 12th | 7:30 PM | F/5-4 W (Barely)

Rehabguy

In ROY I trust
Oct 2, 2011
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Thrilled to see Roy so pissed off publicly. Truly believe he would have let his teammates hear it if that was him in goal and more than just a stick break. Damn well hope he laid into this team last night and will continue to do so until they hit the ice Sunday. That was the most embarrassing display in a very long time. To coast like that for Ilya with the way he plays every night. Sad.
Been saying it for the past few years. Between Trotz play not to lose and keep it close to Lamberts basketball defensive plan and with both repeatedly for years touting this was the “right way” to play hockey they both F’d up this teams mentality to close out games for a long time. As I said when Roy was hired his number one goal will have to be to fix this playing on their heals mentality that was instilled upon them as though it something good to do. That this game is a chess match and you can win if simply don’t make mistakes. This playing not to lose has now transitioned towards fear of losing and now they are losing more than they are holding onto leads. It’s a big task for Roy but if it takes public humiliation to snap them out of it. So be it. You can’t rebuild this team that’s inflicted with this disease it will just perpetuate. The problem is not the roster the problem was bad coaching that was not worth it in the long term.
 
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Satan'sIsland81

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Feb 9, 2007
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I thought I was going to hear all the usual "focus on the good things" talk, so I was very happy to see Roy as pissed as he was. What happened in that last 8 minutes was disgusting, in my opinion worse than a loss and showed this team has learned nothing from the first 30 games. For 8 minutes they simply stopped playing. There was no effort, no compete and they acted like they did not need to do anything more to win. It was a lack of respect for their goalie, for the fans and for the sport in general.

And to be totally honest, I sensed it coming during the power play back when it was 5-2 and there was still 6 minutes remaining. The team made no effort to score. They were just lazily passing the puck around the boards and coasting back to get the puck when it left the zone. I would have to go back and watch (which I don't want to do), but I do not remember a single even attempted shot in the direction of the net.

How this team of any team could consider the game over up 3 goals means they have learned nothing from their mistakes. There is not one single other team in the NHL that would not have been trying to score on that PP. It is not like they were up 5-6 goals, then maybe you can understand. The other night I was watching some of Jets-Bruins and the Jets were up either 4 or 5 goals and still were aggressive on the PP and scored to take a bigger lead.

I do not know if the Isles are just soft, lazy, or they feel bad for other teams and do not want to ever win by more than a goal or two but last night was despicable.
 
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crashthenet

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Jul 9, 2004
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Hockey Falls
We’re getting close to a Roy all out explosion and I’m all for it!! Tear it down and let this men have a hand in building his team with guys who can play for him.


The last 8 minutes?? What about the first 20 minutes? Give me a break. The Hawks have more AHL defenseman in the lineup than we do. The first period was a joke. They are not ready to play. Again. Who owns that? And the special teams suck. He's part of it.
 

Rehabguy

In ROY I trust
Oct 2, 2011
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There is a coach there who walked in the door with a special teams plan and the PP for that team has been very good.
The Isles should just go back to the old way of doing things and get rid of all these secondary coaches and have Roy run the whole damn thing like Arbor did.
 
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Arsenalogist24

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Dec 10, 2013
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The last 8 minutes?? What about the first 20 minutes? Give me a break. The Hawks have more AHL defenseman in the lineup than we do. The first period was a joke. They are not ready to play. Again. Who owns that? And the special teams suck. He's part of it.
I do think he absolutely had to trash the team for that last half of the third period. But I’m also in agreement with you that this team has so many lingering issues for 3 coaches now. It’s exactly why I want trades for prospects/futures from Nelson/Palms
 

Rehabguy

In ROY I trust
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What ticks me off about these late period losses is that the team - meaning the players on the ice apparently did not recognize that there was an issue- that apparently this was all just "bad bounces".

This is what Fasching had to say about this in earlier this month: article

“For a while there, we were just like, ‘It's just like bad bounces.' That’s what it felt like. Even watching the games, I'm like, ‘They're not even doing anything wrong.’ It's just like, how can that possibly keep happening, and then eventually it just happens," a puzzled Fasching said. "Now it just creates its own narrative, and so, I think at that point we were obviously aware of it, and then we tried to address. For a while, we were just like, ‘Oh, it's just gonna go away, bad bounces,’ and then eventually you have to address it since it just keeps happening. I think we all have a good head about it. I think we've exercised our demons a little bit, and hopefully, going forward, we can use this win as a little bit of a springboard. We wouldn't ignore it, but there wasn't anything we could do about it other than treat it like the bad bounces that they were," Fasching said. So we weren't really even talking about it for a while. So I think eventually, we got to talking about what we think is going on here. We put some serious effort into it. The thing for us is not to sit back. We wanted to make sure we're punching forward and trying to go get them. Don’t just sit on our heels and wait to get scored on."

“We had a couple of team meetings about it. Guys talk about it in the locker room, ‘Hey, what do you think the problem is?’ Fasching said. "Everybody was just like, 'We don't know what the problem is.’ It seems like it's just that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and that's, unfortunately, the reality of hockey. I mean, that's why it's fun to watch. It's unpredictable, right, but sometimes it just doesn't go your way. It's unfortunate."

That last statement was just horrible. It's not fun to watch a game being teased about a win only to watch your team implode over and over again. People spend time and money to watch these games and cheer their favorite team on but to not recognize that you are blowing it every third period is pretty sad. And this has been going on for how long?

As a casual fan I wrote about this over a year ago and many many months before that.
The problem is not the roster. This roster has as good a chance as any to compete for the Cup. The problem with this team is the game plan and this problem harks all the way back to the year Trotz joined this club 5 years ago. The problem is this team plays too a risk adverse game plan that it relies on zone defense to finish out a game when they have the lead and at least under Trotz relied too much on the opponents to make a mistake on the Isles forecheck to generate offense even when they are down only one or two goals late in the game. That risk adverse nature of the game cost this team the ability to generate goals when it needs to and to defend properly when they just have to protect the lead.

Again as has been mentioned in several threads, this is not a game of chess but this is how both Lambert and Trotz before him approached the game. If you completely buy into the system you can control the other players movements by only making the right decisions. But unlike chess there are too variables you don’t have control over, like physical mistakes, unlucky puck bounces, and psychological factors which don’t play any part in chess. It’s this variable, psychological stress that the coaching staff is doing a TERRIBLE job understanding.

They believe if you play not to lose in the third period and stick to strict zone defense you will invariably beat the other team. Problem is every team caught onto this starting I noticed starting with Lightning’s Cooper since the first playoffs in the ECF. He told his team “don’t worry about the Islanders if they are leading in the 3rd period they will play zone defense and they will make practically no attempt launch a counter attack. So can cheat as much as you want, join the rush as much as you want and take as many shots as you want because they always collapse around their goaltender and idea of going the other way is practically non existent.”

And that’s what we are seeing here. And this Has to be what the Lambert is telling them because it’s too predictable and we’ve all seen it one too many times. This is not chess. You can’t fully control what the other player does. You cannot play a mistake free game such that you can control what the other team does. There’s a lot of psychology in all sports. You need to get into the opponents heads.

The solution to current Islanders collapses in the 3rd period is simply making sure the other team understands you are still playing to win and not just going backwards on your heels playing not lose. Yes the objective is still to protect your lead don’t telegraph this like poorly telegraphed plays during a power play. The opponent has to fear that you are going to launch a counter attack with odd man rushes the other way if you play too aggressively in your attempts to catch up or tie a game. And you do this over and over again until the opponent thinks twice about pressing.

So what that means is if the team is pressing and the Dmen are joining the rush the Isles have to try to gain possession and soon as they do chip the puck into the center ice and have two players already headed the other way. But the Isles don’t do this like other team would do because they are coached to be too risk adverse. “No no stay back and just protect the lead”. This the game plan they have taken ever since Trotz was here and now that everyone has caught onto the plan our goaltenders are just getting annihilated because every team knows the Isles don’t launch counterattacks late in the game. This creates a lot of angst for our players and goaltenders and a lot of confidence for the opposing team.

So to me this is the solution to problem (be a threat to score with odd man rushes the other way) in addition to a hybrid zone defense for better gap control where they are putting more pressure at the blue line by playing more man on man when up high and an anchor zone defense down low. This puts pressure on the opponent to make mistakes and not give them time to set up.

If Lambert does have this type of answer to the Isles current defensive woes he needs to go.

Last edited: Nov 5, 2023
It's inexcusable that the players on the ice didn't recognize this as a problem until now. Roy has repeatedly urged this team to push on late in the third period throughout the year and lately he has been calling time outs to remind them about it. In that article I quoted Fasching the author actually blamed Roy for playing a "not to lose" game which is the exact opposite of what Roy preaches. Although he did ask the team to throttle down their aggressiveness when Barzal, Duke, and the entire L side defense got injured but he does not preach a passive game at all. This is not on Roy and I'm glad he's being vocal about it. For their own sake Roy needs to rip the team a new one every time they revert back to this loser mentality.
 
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doublechili

For all intensive purposes, your nuts
Apr 11, 2006
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The Isles should just go back to the old way of doing things and get rid of all these secondary coaches and have Roy run the whole damn thing like Arbor did.
Roy coaching the PP: "Score on the PP or practice the next day is bag skates the whole time."

That would probably work better than the current strategy.
 

Rehabguy

In ROY I trust
Oct 2, 2011
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Roy coaching the PP: "Score on the PP or practice the next day is bag skates the whole time."

That would probably work better than the current strategy.
Arbour would play mind games with his players. He once had his players each put a raw egg in their pants and guaranteed them that they would be fine by the end of the game day because they had been playing such a soft non-physical game lately. One of the players, Pat Price took his egg and cracked it over Arbour's head in jest. He was put on waivers next year.

Roy is old school. That's why I love the guy. He understands what it takes to win. He must be looking at these players today and thinking to himself what a bunch of softees. No compete level. No drive. No willingness to sacrifice the body unless it is by accident. No desire to do what it takes to win. He's from a totally different generation when players were hardcore.

I remember during a power play earlier this year Roy called a time out and started yelling at his players and all of a sudden they were shooting from everywhere keeping it simple and they actually scored a goal. He wants players to just go out there and do it. Must be frustrating for him.
 
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Rehabguy

In ROY I trust
Oct 2, 2011
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Something tells me 1980s coaching probably ain’t gonna work nowadays.
That's because there are too many mentally weak players in the league nowadays. What happened to the days when Gillies or Nystrom would have a meeting deciding who was going to fight who prior to a game just to get an edge on the opposition. Nowadays it's about "bad bounces". Sad really sad.
 
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Throttle

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Sep 22, 2020
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That's because there are too many mentally weak players in the league nowadays. What happened to the days when Gillies or Nystrom would have a meeting deciding who was going to fight who prior to a game just to get an edge on the opposition. Nowadays it's about "bad bounces". Sad really sad.
It’s more a society thing…not limited to Islanders hockey players.
 

leeroggy

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Jan 3, 2010
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That's because there are too many mentally weak players in the league nowadays. What happened to the days when Gillies or Nystrom would have a meeting deciding who was going to fight who prior to a game just to get an edge on the opposition. Nowadays it's about "bad bounces". Sad really sad.

Well, to be fair, Hospodar took a bad bounce after Gillies hit him
 
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