Islanders six takeaways from Pittsburgh Penguins mini series

The New York Islanders dropped an extra point on Saturday, but made up for it on Sunday. Here are six (total) takeaways from the weekend B2B vs. Pittsburgh.

The New York Islanders dropped an extra point on Saturday in their 4-3 overtime defeat, but Sunday’s effort made up for it, as they beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-0 in the second half of their weekend back-to-back.

Here are three takeaways from each of the weekend’s two games.

1. 2/27: Islanders Burned by Semyon Varlamov’s Bad Start

Thankfully for the New York Islanders, Semyon Varlamov hasn’t had many truly bad starts this season. Varly has three Really Bad Starts in 2020-21, RBS is a stat developed by Rob Vollman to easily quantify a goaltender’s starts with a sub-85% SV%. Varlamov’s .871 SV% from Saturday doesn’t qualify for an RBS, but that, unfortunately, doesn’t mean the start was any good either.

Varlamov’s troubles began in the second period when he fell down in the middle of a 4v5 penalty kill, leaving Sidney Crosby with a wide-open net to shoot at. Only 26 seconds later, Varlamov allowed another soft goal to Kris Letang when he didn’t properly cut off his angle and was beaten by a low, unscreened shot from a distance.

The overtime winner, also scored by Letang, was a save-able shot that caught J.G. Pageau’s stick blade. It fluttered past Varly’s blocker and into the net for a Penguins win with less than half a minute remaining in overtime.

I didn’t comment on the third Penguins goal, because that one was more a matter of miscommunication between Ryan Pulock and Adam Pelech, leaving Jared McCann wide open in the slot off a Penguins rush.

It’s hard for me to get mad at Varlamov for a poor performance here. He’s been very solid for the Islanders all season, but this loss does rest pretty squarely on his shoulders.

If there is any positive that could come from a poor start like this, perhaps it’s that Barry Trotz begins to turn to Ilya Sorokin more often. Giving Varly more rest in between starts.

Sorokin’s last start prior to Sunday vs. Pittsburgh was on February 16, a 3-0 victory over the Buffalo Sabres in which he made 20 saves, and a few really spectacular ones.

Varlamov has been very good for the Islanders this season and last, but he’s a couple of months shy of 33-years-old and has a history of knee injuries. He started 184 games for the Colorado Avalanche across three seasons between 2013-14 and 2015-16, but his days of carrying that sort of workload, considering his injury history, should definitely be left behind him.

Hopefully, Sorokin can inspire the sort of confidence needed for Barry Trotz to get him into action more regularly. The 25-year-old’s form has gotten better in every game this season, and the added rest for Varlamov could pay huge dividends heading down the stretch of this 2020-21 season.

2. 2/27: The Nelson Line’s 5v5 Dominance

A lot of Islanders had good nights on Saturday despite the result, but the Isles’ reunited second line had their best game yet.

Anthony Beauvillier, Brock Nelson, and Josh Bailey were three of the Islanders best forwards, hands down. They weren’t just popping in goals on the power-play either, they were Saturday’s best forward line for either team at 5v5, and they did it playing unsheltered minutes against Pittsburgh’s top unit featuring Crosby, Jake Guentzel, and Kasperi Kapanen.

By the end of regulation, the Nelson line had beaten their opposition 19-5 on total shot attempts, and 14-5 on unblocked shot attempts, according to Natural Stat Trick. Most impressively, through two periods they hadn’t allowed a single shot attempt, blocked or unblocked, by their Penguins opposition.

Because of the sheer quantity advantage, the quality of shots and the scoring chances they created were bound to be tilted in the Nelson line’s favor, and they were. Brock and Co. took home 81.79% of the expected goals, 82.35% of the 5v5 scoring chances, and beat their competition 6-0 in high-danger chances.

To summarize, the Nelson line totally controlled the run of 5v5 play through 40 minutes across a variety of deployments in all three zones. They let off the gas a little in the third period, but I think that was a broader trend among the game’s final 25 minutes, as I’d say Pittsburgh overall had the better of play in Saturday’s final frame and overtime.

Now, obviously, it sucks to lose a game in which one of your 5v5 units absolutely dominates top competition the way the Nelson line did. But, there is a silver lining here, and it’s that this trio is comprised by the three Islanders forwards who struggled more than perhaps anyone else on the team earlier this season.

Through about 15 games there was a growing sect of Islanders fans who wanted Brock scratched for his run of poor play. Beauvillier, though injured for a significant string of games, didn’t produce much early in the season either. And Bailey, well, Josh Bailey literally has a portion of this fanbase mad at him, fairly or unfairly, in perpetuity.

Nelson and Bailey each logged several shots from the inner slot, and they each scored a goal. Meanwhile, Beauvillier got the primary assist on Bailey’s power-play tally and finished with the third-highest individual expected goals mark, at .36, just behind his two 5v5 linemates.

That’s not to say this one performance should overshadow all the poor ones that preceded it, but I have been saying that this trio is too talented to be that cold for an entire 56-game season.

Whether this fantastic performance kicks off a run of even better play going forward is tough to say, but it certainly won’t hurt. It’s also just very encouraging to see three forwards who were so crucial to the Islanders in their playoff bubble run performing up to their potential. More of this, please.

Note: I wrote Saturday’s takeaways prior to the start of Sunday’s game, so they may seem a bit odd without this piece of context. Yeah, the Nelson line looked great again on Sunday. They again dominated the Crosby line through two periods before a late-game surge by Pittsburgh’s top unit.

3. 2/27: Islanders Extra Time Woes Continue

The New York Islanders are a combined 14-9 in 3v3 overtimes in Barry Trotz’s two “full” seasons, 2018-19 and 2019-20, at the team’s helm. That doesn’t count shootouts, just the outcomes decided by the 3v3 game state itself. This season they are 0-3 in OT, and 0-1 in the shootout.

The Islanders 3v3 prowess from the prior two seasons, and the way in which Barry Trotz has added strategy to the 3v3 game state, has not gone unnoticed.

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn released a great piece on the 3v3 overtime, its stats, and strategies (subscription required).

“In 3-on-3 it’s about possession and decisions and if you don’t have it it’s position and patience.” said Trotz, a member of a group selected because of their success in the 3v3 OT by Luszczyszyn. According to Dom, that was a sentiment echoed by many of the group he spoke to for his article.

So why then does this Islanders team seem to be struggling in the same format in which they’ve been so good? Could it just be other NHL teams have caught up to them in terms of the sophistication of their 3v3 strategy? I suppose to some extent that’s possible, though I wouldn’t declare it the sole reason for why the Islanders are winless through four games in extra time.

I actually think that Saturday’s overtime is a good example of the Islanders not executing Trotz’s 3v3 strategy.

While yes, the Isles did have a couple of dangerous odd-man rushes up-ice, including a J.G. Pageau semi-breakaway, they didn’t maintain as much possession as Pittsburgh did, and what possession they did have didn’t create a single dangerous scoring chance that I saw.

In the end, Saturday’s OT came down to what amounted to an unlucky break. Pageau had his stick in the right position, his gap control was very good for a forward, and in the end, a shot that ricocheted off the blade of his stick fluttered into the Islanders net anyway.

Hopefully, the Islanders can clean up their play in the 3v3 overtimes to come, because that was a decided strength of theirs prior to this season. As Trotz said, it comes down to decisions and possession with the puck, patience, and positioning without it.

Let’s move on to takeaways from Sunday’s game.

2. 2/28: Sorokin’s 2nd Shutout, and the Case for Returning to a Goalie Rotation

Speaking of young, first-year NHL’ers making an impact, Ilya Sorokin’s second shutout in as many games should have New York Islanders fans abuzz. I was a little nervous for Sorokin entering tonight’s game.

Against a Pittsburgh team who had seemingly owned the Islanders to this point, and having waited nearly two weeks between starts, I thought the potential for a Sorokin slip-up was there. But, it didn’t happen that way. Sorokin looked focused despite a spaced-out workload in this one and earned the second shutout of his NHL career because of it.

It should start to raise a specific question about the Islanders goalie situation, and I’m not insinuating that Sorokin needs to take over the lion’s share of starting duties because of one off-night from Semyon Varlamov on Saturday.

But, I don’t think it’s crazy to argue Varly’s off-night could be a symptom of a greater problem. Namely, how heavily Barry Trotz had relied upon his elder goaltender throughout the month of February. I mean, the Islanders played ten games in February, and Sorokin only started twice the whole month.

Barry Trotz won’t have the luxury of doing that in March, as the Islanders don’t have consecutive days off until the first week of April. That is an insanely heavy workload on the horizon, but it’s the reality of playing a truncated NHL schedule, and it’s something every team will have to face.

For Trotz and the Islanders, the packed schedule will mean returning to something more akin to the 1/1A goalie tandem the Islanders rolled in 2019-20 when Thomas Greiss was still an Islander. Remember, the Islanders didn’t have a goalie start consecutive games until mid-December during the 2019-20 season.

While I don’t think that’s necessarily going to happen here, I do believe that Trotz is going to have to rely on Sorokin to become a 1A, rather than the B role he’s filled to this point in 2020-21.

As for Sorokin’s performance on Sunday, I think it was very encouraging as far as what he could potentially do as Varlamov’s 1A. Sorokin wasn’t tasked with making any highlight-reel saves on Sunday, but he made the routine saves look routine, which was something he wasn’t doing back in early January.

It’s also an extremely underrated skill to be able to remain focused through long lulls in action as a goalie. Sorokin wasn’t tested much through 40 minutes, but when he was tasked with keeping the scoresheet clean he was up to the job. We’ll see how he fares going forward in March, as the Islanders are probably going to call his number a lot more than they did in February.

6. The Islanders February In Review, Looking Ahead to March

Considering that by the time you’re reading this it’ll already be March 1, we might as well close out this special double-length takeaway with a review of February, and a preview of March.

February was a bit of a weird month, but if the Islanders secure a playoff berth with a top-four spot in the division, I think this’ll be the month that we look back on as the one that got them moving in the right direction.

Remember back to February 1. The Islanders had just lost their fifth straight game, an overtime heartbreaker in Philadelphia which could’ve very easily been Ilya Sorokin’s first NHL win, but wasn’t. Sorokin made some pretty incredible cross-crease saves in that game, but again, the Islanders fell short, and the attitude from fans about the team was pretty low.

Then New York State got hit by a Nor’easter, canceling the first two Islanders games of the month, at home vs. the Buffalo Sabres. But, that week of practice turned out to be kind of a big deal. The Islanders rattled off six consecutive games with at least one point, and suddenly opinion turned. After a couple more regulation losses to the Penguins, the sky was again falling.

But, never fear, the Islanders beat Buffalo again, and then the Boston Bruins, their third win over them in as many games this season, and their second of the month of February. Leading everyone to question whether Boston was any good anymore after they went on to lose to the Rangers the next night. (Hint: I think Boston’s still good.)

Take all that and tack it on to these last two games, and you have the month of February in review. The Islanders finished the month with a very good 8-2-2 record, all four losses came against Pittsburgh, but thankfully the Blue and Orange won’t see them again until the final week of March.

The Isles are in third place in the MassMutual East Division, with a record of 11-6-4.

As far as the advanced stats go, things are looking pretty good there too. The Islanders rank fifth overall in the NHL in xGF% at 5v5 when adjusted for score and venue. In other words, they’re very good at 5v5 when it comes to shooting from dangerous areas, and they limited opponents’ shooting opportunities from those same dangerous areas. That’s a good recipe for success.

Looking ahead to March, as I said before, the Islanders have an incredibly busy schedule. They won’t get consecutive days off at all in the month.

As far as opponents go, the Islanders will play the Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils seven times in their first eight games, with that outlier being a March 9 home game vs. Boston.

The Isles should look to pick up as many points as possible vs. Buffalo and New Jersey, because this is the soft spot in their schedule, the rest of the month they’ll face Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Washington. So pick up points anywhere you can should be the message for the first couple weeks of March, as the schedule does harden down the stretch.

Notably, the Islanders won’t face the Rangers at all in March. They won’t meet them again until April 9 and 11.

Well, I think that’ll be it for this special double-length takeaways. This thing is way too long, but if you’ve read all the way to this point, then thanks! I hope the readers are enjoying reading these takeaways posts as much as I enjoy writing them. I look forward to chatting more about Islanders hockey in the month of March with you all, see ya then.