New York Islanders Seeing The Noise In Production

Who on the New York Islanders has a more sustainable production arch? I looked at what each player on the Islanders roster is producing in terms of goals, primary assists, and “noise”.

The New York Islanders are on fire. Winning four games in a row and putting up just under four goals a game in the process. Putting them within reach of the Metropolitan Division lead.

It’s crazy when you think about it. Just this offseason we had a hard time convincing some of the Islanders fanbase that the Isles were a playoff team. but here they are three points ahead of the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins, who are both in a wild-card position.

They’re also four points ahead of the New York Rangers, who are not in a playoff position. I just wanted to add that in.

I’ve mentioned a number of times that this goalscoring bonanza is going to come to an end at some point. It won’t be permanent, but at one point the New York Islanders won’t be scoring three to five goals a night.

So to brace myself for the inevitable I pulled together a bit of data, nothing intense, just goals, primary and secondary assists for every New York Islanders skaters, and plotted it on a graph.

Inspiration From Twitter

For some of you that follow data visualists like Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) on Twitter will be familiar with the concept.

He regularly plots graphs that show the same details. Except he cleverly calls secondary assists “noise”. He call’s them noise because he’s against them. It’s fair, as we all know, secondary assists don’t always have

I wanted to recreate the same with the New York Islanders roster to see what player is making a lot of “noise”. And the results are too surprising.

Josh Bailey is the noisiest of the group with 15 secondary assists on the season. My immediate thought is “that’s going to dry up”. But of late Bailey’s been pouring on the primary assists.

In his last five games, Bailey has five points. A single goal – that beauty overtime winner from John Tavares – and four assists. All of which are primary assists.

Barzal is another worry for “noise” level. Of his 24 points this season, eight have come as secondary assists. To be fair, no one is going to say that Barzal isn’t pulling his weight around the ice and is just benefiting off of other productivity.

The player I worry about is Brock Nelson. His nine points in 24 games are already terrible. But he doesn’t have a primary assist on the season. Not one. Adding fuel to the claim, that when he isn’t out there scoring, something that doesn’t happen often, he isn’t doing much else in the productivity department. You know. The department that directly has an impact on winning games.

Next: The Isles Have A Glaring Hole In Their Defense

It’s an interesting way to look at the New York Islanders productivity. Josh Bailey’s productivity is laced with secondary assists. Which I’m sure will have detractors saying: “AH! HA!” But again he’s transitioning those secondaries into primaries and goals.

But what I take out of the data is that there isn’t anyone out there just “floating around” except for Brock Nelson.