New York Islanders Daily: Special Teams Problems

The New York Islanders are a team that struggles in a lot of areas at the moment. Although the most glaring issue with this team is their special teams play.

Based off of last year we could figure that the New York Islanders power play was going to be weak again. The surprising aspect is their penalty kill which the Islanders are desperately trying to fix.

Last year the Islanders penalty kill was a strong point of their team. It started that way this season as well but after they played in Pittsburgh allowing a power play goal it has all seemed to go down hill.

They are ranked 26th in the league killing penalties which is a significant drop off from the year before. Part of the reason for these struggles is because they are unable to stay out of the penalty box.

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Eight times this year the Islanders have taken more penalties than their opponent. The Isles have been playing much better in five on five but once the struggling penalty kill is forced to come out the Islanders tend to unravel.

In 2015-16 this unit was ranked fourth killing off 84.5% of penalties. Even this year through the first six games they killed 21 of 22. What caused this significant change? Regardless of the excuse that Jack Capuano drums up this time, it’s an issues that has to be solved immediately.

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The future looks bright in net. (Eyes On Isles)

Islanders prospect Ilya Sorokin has impressed so far this year. In 20 games this season, Sorokin has a 1.27 GAA and a .941 SV%.

Odds are Capuano is one of the first coaches fired (Eyes On Isles)

At +210 and with the way the Islanders are currently playing it seems like Jack Capuano’s future is all but decided. It’s just a matter of when and not if.

Next: Renewing The Great Rivalry With Math

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Fair or not it’s time to pull the plug (SNY)

Brian Erni says it’s time to make a change at the coaching position. Although Erni says that all the blame should not fall on Capuano it’s clear that  he has to be the scapegoat.