Islanders Clincher Was Barry Trotz System To A Tee

After losing a tough Game 4, the New York Islanders returned to form in Game 5 and it was a thing of beauty.

Wow. What a performance from the New York Islanders last night. After dropping Game 4, the Islanders came back and played a great game, a perfect execution of the Barry Trotz system was on display.

When you think of what the Islanders are, it’s shutting teams down with their strong defensive play, getting good goalie play, and scoring timely goals. That was Game 5.

In the first period, the Isles had just six shots on goal, the Capitals had eight but it was the Isles with a lead because of a power play goal from Anthony Beauvillier. Nic Dowd made a mistake, and the Islanders took the opportunity and scored. Simple and effective.

Period two saw the Islanders get another goal from Anthony Beauvillier. The Isles registered just seven shots on goal, so they scored on 14 percent of their shots in the period while they held the Caps to just six shots, essentially smothering them.

With a 2-0 lead heading into the third period, the team had to have known that the Caps would begin to press. They tried but to no prevail. The Caps registered just seven shots in the period.

The third period was even more on-brand for the Isles. Again they allowed a low number of shots, seven, but they only registered four. The Islanders scored two empty-net goals on those four shots.

They don’t care about how many shots they get on net, they just aren’t going to allow you to get anything of quality going towards the net. In 21 shots, the Capitals had four high danger chances.

The Islanders had six on 17 shots, and two of those shots were at an empty-net goal so six for 15 is 40% of your shots being high danger chances. That is New York Islanders hockey.

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Everyone contributed, they rolled four lines, the goalie was good, and they limited scoring chances against. Barry Trotz has earned every bit of that big contract he got to come to the Island, it’s a real shame the team that he dominated in five games didn’t realize his importance two years ago.