New York Islanders Mid-Season Player Grades

Half of the NHL season has now passed for the New York Islanders, and they’re still at the bottom of the league. It’s the perfect time to review and assess. How do the players grade with another 40 games to go?

The half-way mark is the perfect marker to go over how the New York Islanders players have performed so far. We know that they haven’t performed well, just look at the standings. 28th place in the league answers that.

But in terms fo league wide. How have they performed? How have individual Isles players performed when reviewed against their peers at this halfway mark of the season?

Here’s how I broke down individual player grades. I rated each player’s performance in terms of their production and possession impact against that of the rest of the league.

More from Eyes On Isles

• Islanders key to success: Load management with goalies
• Islanders Zdeno Chara trending in the right direction
• Islanders: Semyon Varlamov Deserves Benefit of the Doubt
• Islanders Ilya Sorokin becoming number one goalie
• Islanders Zach Parise Was Quiet in Return to Minnesota

I chose 5-on-5 production stats like goals, assist, and points simply because that’s what wins games; points. And 5-on-5 possession impact – measured as Corsi Differential (Corsi-For minus Corsi-Against).

And against the rest of the league because, well that’s the only way we’re going to know how good each player is. And that’s to be assessed against his positional peers. This is displayed as a percentile. So if Tavares is in the 82% percentile for goals, only 18% of the league’s forwards are better.

I split defenceman and forwards. There’s no need to compare Andrew Ladd to Erik Karlsson, or Nick Leddy to Steven Stamkos. They all perform different tasks and thus contribute in different ways.

Here’s an example of what you’ll see. Each player is then ranked amongst the team based on a weighted average where goals and assists are more important than points and Corsi Differential, but only slightly. You’ll see that weighted average at the top right.

Last thing, I’ve grouped players together into lines based on their rankings for ease of reading and to see how the Islanders talents ranks. Enjoy.

PS: I didn’t do the goalies, because let’s be honest Greiss has been fantastic. The other guy is gone. And Berube’s hardly played.