Islanders: Looking back at three shifted mid-season expectations

By February we knew the New York Islanders were likely going to end up where they did. Outside of the playoffs. The results just weren't there early in the year. It was certainly possible for the Isles to make the jump, but it was indeed unlikely.

We know it wasn't just a team issue that saw them fall out of the playoffs. A number of players just didn't have the start to the year that we expected they'd have. So by February, I decided to move the goalposts on a few players. I changed the expectations for a few guys.

Three months later, I'm going back on those changed expectations to see if those three specific players hit the new level I had set for them or not.

The three players in question were:
Kyle Palmieri
Ryan Pulock
Anders Lee

Kyle Palmieri

February expectation
Palmieri was supposed to be a 20-25 goal scorer through a full season. With a single goal in 29 games to open the year, he wasn't going to hit that number. But could he pace out to that number the rest of the way? Could Palmieri close out the season scoring between a 0.244 and 0.305 goals per game pace in whatever games remained?

What he did
Over the next 35 games, after I wrote my expectation piece, Palmieri scored ten goals and 22 points. That's a 0.628 point pace or 52 points over a full year. So that's good for Palmieri. But we're concerned with his goal-scoring. Because that's what Palmieri was brought in to do.

Ten goals over 35 games is a pace of 0.285 goals per game. That's 23 goals over a full NHL season. Now that's the Kyle Palmieri the Islanders thought they were getting when they signed him to a four-year deal.

Is it sustainable?
I'm glad to see Palmieri get to the level the Islanders wanted him to be at, eventually. But I can't say I'm not concerned going forward. That's two years now where Palmieri has shown issues.

In 2020-21 he converted shots to goals at 8.7% between the Islanders and Devils. Now in 21-22, he converted at a 9.6% clip. There's a real worry that we might see that Palmieri again.

We won't know he's past the results from 20-21 and 21-22 until we see it on the ice. So we go into 22-23 hopeful, but still a little worried.

Ryan Pulock

February expectation
We know Pulock's quality as a defenseman. His defensive game is as solid as any blueliner's in the NHL. But what makes Pulock stand out as a top-pair guy is his ability to pair solid production with that defensive game.

Through Pulock's first 22 games of the year, he put up five points, all helpers. I was less concerned with his assists than I was his goal-scoring. His goal scoring had totally dried up over the last season+. Through his previous 69 games before my February post, Pulock had two goals to his name. Could he show he can score at a ~10-goal pace through the rest of the 21-22 season?

What he did
Over the next 34 games, Pulock scored five goals (and 16 points). That's a 0.147 goal-per-game pace for Ryan Pulock. Slightly above what I was expecting of him at 0.12 goals per game.

Pace out that 0.147 goals per game over a full season, and Pulock is sitting at 12 goals. Just like Palmieri that is the type of production the Islanders want to see from Pulock. We're all used to seeing Pulock score 9-10 goals a year because that's what he did from 2017-18 through 2019-20.

He's the top guy for the Isles because he blends a perfect mix of defense and offense. We haven't seen that mix for a year+ now, so it was nice to see him do that at the end of the season.

Is it sustainable?
Yes. I have no doubt about it.

I understand this seems like a similar situation to Kyle Palmieri. This is yet another player who's not been at the level he should be for a while now, so why should we trust a 34-game sample that he's "cured"?

That's a fair concern, but Pulock is three and half years younger than Palmieri. Pulock is still in his prime so he's much likelier to return to the player we saw from 2017 to 2020 than Palmieri is.