New York Islanders: The ‘mind-blowing’ correlation between this season and last season

Imagine a scenario where an NHL team has a terrible year with glaring flaws then does nothing about it, well, look no further than the New York Islanders.

The New York Islanders had a terrible season last year. Okay, great, that is all in the past and rightfully so.

They fired their head coach and GM. The new head coach, as we know, is Barry Trotz. His staff is making some nice changes to the style of play, but nothing drastic yet.

In terms of the players needed to get better from last year, the Isles didn’t exactly do that.

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They improved the coaching staff, obviously. Yet, he the Isles are sitting at 3-4-1.

Granted, that is not the worst record. The Isles do have some statement wins.

However, their losses are what standout more.

Robin Lehner, on Wednesday night, had a wasted performance. He kept the Isles in the game vs the Panthers. However, the Isles blew an early 2-0 lead and wasted what should have been two easy points at home.

With all these changes, you could figure they would still be losing many games, but not looking similar to last season in terms of what aspect of hockey to place the blame.

Well, that is not the case the losing is still from the same reasons as last year despite their being a whole new identity there.

Much like last year, the Isles power play so far this year is shameful. They started off good on the penalty kill this year, but fell out that groove. They gave up two in the loss to the Panthers.

Also, the defense still has glaring gaps in judgments around the net and didn’t make life any easier for their goalie.

So, through all the change and all the “culture fixing” why are they still losing games the exact same way? It takes time to start banking points, but that doesn’t mean it can’t look or feel different.

This might sound crazy, but the reason why the Isles are still struggling at times is not because of the coaching. It is not from the wacky new schedule.

The Isles just do not have the talent to be good.

The Isles defensive core, who are although getting there, still does not look much different from last year.

Players on the penalty kill still don’t seem to know their assignments.

I’ll give credit where it is due. I think it is fair to say that Barry Trotz and Lou Lamroriello know they don’t have much to work with, but it is official now.

Barry Trotz’s system likely won’t help them anytime soon.

Lou’s draft picks need a few years to all come along.

Whether this is just me reassuring the obvious or me stating some kind of riveting fact, the direct correlation between last year’s team that didn’t do well and this year that is struggling at times, is talent.

Pure and simple. They still do not have the talent.

They need to reshape the roster in specific ways . They might have improved in goal with Lehner.

But, they need to bring in power play killing specialist Cal Clutterbuck is not it anymore, let their defensemen develop (Devon Toews), and simply get better talent.

Get talent that fits the system.

So, if all else fails, hopefully this is just a reminder to you all about that.

That is why they are losing, onto the Flyers on Saturday.