Islanders Gameday News: Defending the sins

11 months ago  /  Lighthouse Hockey  /  Read Time: 32 seconds

And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here? | Photo by Jay Anderson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images


The Islanders play (and inevitably disappoint) again tonight, and Lane Lambert addressed questions on what they keep screwing up. The Islanders are back at it tonight, destined to find a new way to piss you off in the same way, ultimately. If the Columbus Blue Jackets trail heading into the third period tonight, will they ever be more confident that they can come back than they will be tonight?
Leave your First Islanders Goal picks here.
Lane Lambert Speaks
Everyone is piling on head coach Lane Lambert, understandably so, as his team repeatedly exhibits a kindergarten fire drill approach to defending and holding leads. So the day after the latest (and grossest) collapse, Lambert was asked lots about all that. Full video here, but among the points:

The leads have been built through being aggressive and blown through passivity: “When you give up some leads or when some [bad] things happen, human nature can see you back off a bit. We need to get back to being aggressive.”
“It’s a bit of a mindset [on being aggressive]. On some of these [blown leads] we’ve taken penalties and we’ve talked about that. There’s been a bit of variation on what has quote ‘gone wrong.’ ... We need to change our mindset.”
On why past Isles teams protected leads in ways the current team cannot: “If you’re talking about those teams, there were different personnel. That’s the past. We move forward. We’re not worried about whatever was good in the past and whatever was bad in the past.”
On not beating up the team too much: “You have to be very very careful of the negative getting in the way of the positive here. We’ve had points in nine out of 10 games — and I get it, it’s skewed because of the overtime and shootout losses, but you gotta be very very careful with the negativity outweighing the positives. There’s a lot of positives, and our guys our working, and I give them full credit.”
On finding optimism from the points while everyone is piling on about the blown leads: “Those are legit questions. They should be asked.”

Islanders News

Sebastian Aho The Greater is skating but still on IR. He won’t play tonight. [Isles]
Also on that page, there is also video of Scott Mayfield being asked about WTF happened to the old Isles identity of locking down leads. He was not asked WTF he was thinking on that fatal poor clear against the Sharks.
Blowing it is always on their mind. [AM NY]
Mat Barzal reflects on trying to rediscover elite form, and how confidence waned in recent years. But he’s learned about the all-around game from Lou and Barry and continues to pursue that. [Post]
Some more this and that from that Lambert presser. [THN]

Elsewhere
Last night’s NHL scores include the Penguins falling to the Lightning and Kucherov’s 11-game points streak, and the Hurricanes were smoked by the Oilers.

32 Thoughts: something something Leafs. There’s a slight Isles mention, of Scott Malkin cashing in on rising values to sell a 10 percent stake in the team. [Sportsnet]
The non-Swiss Family Robinson on the Blue Jackets was traded to the Sabres for a seventh. [NHL]
The Blue Jackets are also dealing with a bunch of injuries. So they’ll beat the Isles tonight for sure. [NHL]
Ilya Kovalchuk returned from a two-year hiatus to sign in the KHL. Probably to avoid being sent to the front of the invasion of Ukraine. [TSN]
Jacques Martin returns to the Senators as a senior advisor — and no that doesn’t mean his age — to the coaching staff, which makes him interim-coach-in-waiting, right? [TSN]

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