WINNIPEG, Manitoba — The Islanders are lastly out of the NHL’s basement on the penalty kill.
And at the very least for now, they seem to have solved an issue that plagued them for 2 straight seasons.
“I feel when issues have been going poorly initially of the season, we clearly had no confidence within the penalty kill,” Adam Pelech mentioned earlier than the Isles went 2-for-2 on the PK towards the Jets’ league-leading energy play, albeit in a 4-3 defeat. “Proper now, it’s the exact opposite. We’ve got a lot confidence within the penalty kill.”
It’s no coincidence that the turnaround at four-on-five has gone hand in hand with the turnaround of the season at massive.
After Friday, the Islanders have killed off 27 of their final 29 penalties over their 15 video games, a span over which they held an 11-4-0 document.
Calling it a sea change could be an understatement.
Over the season’s first 39 video games, the Islanders solely went consecutive video games with out permitting a power-play objective 5 occasions, and have been on tempo to be the worst PK because the NHL began protecting monitor in 1977-78.
“I feel the largest change is we’ve in all probability been a bit of extra passive at occasions,” Pelech mentioned. “We bought in bother attempting to be too aggressive. You continue to must be aggressive on the proper occasions, if there’s free pucks or puck battles, you’ll want to be aggressive and get the clears. However I feel we’ve completed job of just about having self-discipline in the way in which that we’re passive. Not overextending ourselves and defending harmful areas of the ice.”
That’s totally different — actually, it’s the exact opposite — of what you normally hear about penalty killing, the place aggression is commonly the secret.
“We’re speaking quite a bit about placing strain and being aggressive on the puck provider, however penalty killing’s a bit of totally different,” coach Patrick Roy mentioned. “Now, the blokes need you to be exterior them. So for those who get exterior, that opens up the center and that is the place you’ll want to be affected person. Our guys are doing that basically effectively.”
Mike Reilly (coronary heart) made the journey to Winnipeg with the group and was on the ice Friday morning.
Nevertheless, there was no change in his standing — Reilly didn’t take contact and was solely on the journey as a result of it finishes in Minnesota, the place he’s from, with the 4 Nations break instantly following.