Islanders three players that need to step up, today

Mired in their worst run of play under Barry Trotz, the New York Islanders need to find a way out of the muck. These three players hold the key.

With four back-to-back losses the New York Islanders are facing the longest stretch of losses since Lou Lamoriello and Barry Trotz took over. With a 0-4-0 road trip out West, the Islanders slump back to Long Island with their tails between their legs and a lot of questions to answer.

Namely, how do they get back to winning ways?

The Islanders played relatively good games against the Golden Knights and the Coyotes. They also got great goaltending out of Semyon Varlamov, but still ended up losing both games.

The Islanders are hopefully going to look externally for some answers. Getting a top-six goal scorer is something they desperately need at the trade deadline. They’re one of the worst offensive teams in the league which means they give themselves a very narrow margin of error to win games. And as of lately, the Isles are making mistake after mistake.

But they can’t just look for outside help to fix their issues, they also have to look internally. Almost everyone on the team needs to step up and perform better, but I’ve picked three players who could have a larger impact on the team if they “stepped it up”.

Nick Leddy

He hasn’t been the same player for a few years now. It’s confusing to think of how quickly Nick Leddy went from being the Islanders number one blueliner to a bottom pair player.

Nick Leddy used to be the Islanders most dependable blueliner along with Johnny Boychuk. Not only was he an OK defender but he was a good to even a great offensive defenseman.

But Since December 2017 that hasn’t been the case for Nick Leddy. It seemed that almost instantaneously, Nick Leddy was neither OK in his own end nor was he great offensively. For some reason, it all just kind of went away.

There was no injury. And the drop off wasn’t gradual. It just happened all of a sudden.

The Islanders need the old Nick Leddy back.

They need Leddy to play decent minutes on the back end, be accountable and responsible in his own end, and sprinkle in some production. They need the guy that could carry the puck out from the defensive zone and into attacking situations. They need the defenseman that, along with Johnny Boychuk, turned the Islanders into a playoff team.

If the Islanders are going to be competitive down the stretch they need Nick Leddy to be at his 2016-17 best. A year where he scored eleven goals and 46 points. A year where he scored 14 points on the power play.

Over his last 20 games, Nick Leddy has a total of three points. Just three. Through 51 games this season he has four points on the power play. We’re also seeing a Nick Leddy who’s progressively lost in his own end of the ice for uncomfortable portions of games.

That’s got to change, and quick.

Derick Brassard

He was supposed to be Valtteri Filppula 2.0. He was supposed to not only anchor the third line but give the Islanders some much-needed help on the power play.

We all know that Derick Brassard hasn’t been able to anchor that third line. His inability to be a driving force on what should be the Islanders “do-a-bit-of-everything” line has been well documented so far.

The only stretch in which we saw why Lou Lamoriello signed Derick Brassard this summer was a twelve-game sample between the end of October and the middle of November. In those 12 games, Brassard scored an incredible six goals and 15 points. That’s effectively half of his production this season through 20 percent of his season.

He was hot, and then he very much was not.

Brassard doesn’t need to be that over a point-per-game player once again (although that would be nice) but he needs to be present. Since that incredible production, we’ve barely seen Brassard be a force for good for the Islanders. Aside from the first few games of Kieffer Bellows‘s introduction to the NHL.

That shouldn’t be how it goes. The rookie shouldn’t be breathing new life into a veteran on an expiring contract. The vet should be showing the rookie how he needs to handle himself in the league.

Ideally, that changes for Brassard.

For the Islanders to be successful, they need to be able to run four lines with near-identical usage. The Isles can’t operate unless they roll four lines, and without Brassard playing to his potential they can’t do that.

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Now, with that being said, Brassard took a redirected Ryan Pulock slap shot to the head against the Colorado Avalanche and did not finish the game. Hopefully, it’s nothing major and he’ll be back ASAP.