Islanders 5 takeaways from their successful 2019-20 season

4. Terrible Power Play

In the 2019-20 offseason, Lou Lamoriello let special teams coach Scott Gomez go and brought in his guy Jim Hiller from Toronto. After a dismal 14.5 percent efficiency on the power play in 2018-19, Hiller was supposed to breathe new life into the Isles man advantage.

It didn’t work at all.

The Islanders were terrible yet again on the power play in 2019-20 with a 17.3 percent efficiency. They ranked 24th on the man-advantage in the regular season. It was a weakness that hounded them throughout the regular season and into the postseason.

The issue with the Islanders power play isn’t entirely due to coaching. The Islanders didn’t have a single player with more than four power play goals this season. Anders Lee, who’s put up 33 PPG between 2016-17 and 2018-19 had two this season. Two!

Lee had more power-play goals in the Philadelphia series then he did in the entire 2019-20 season. The issue on the PP isn’t just coaching. Although reducing the reliance on the ‘super-dump’ zone entry by the coaching staff is a must.

Simply put, the Islanders just don’t create enough on the power play.

It’s not that they don’t shoot enough. With 255 shots on 168 opportunities, the Isles rank eleventh for shots per opportunity with 1.517. They shoot enough on the power play. But they don’t get enough quality opportunities.

With an xGF of 30.47 the Isles rank 30th in the league. Only the Montreal Canadiens are worse with a 30.09 xGF on the power play.

What that means is, while the Islanders might be getting enough shots towards the net, they aren’t getting enough quality shots towards the net. The Islanders can address this by bringing in a goal scorer in the offseason.

(All advanced stats take from NaturalStatTrick.)