A quick look at the Isles’ player stats shows an awful lot of minusus where pluses are supposed to be. It’s somewhat understandable when the team has scored the fewest goals in the league, with just 108. But the Isles have given up just 122 goals, which ties them for 12th best in the league. So we need to take a look at the team’s goal differential of negative-14, which is 7th worst in the league. That’s where all the minuses are coming from.
Of the 27 Islanders currently on the roster, an astounding 19 have registered a minus this season. That’s exactly two-thirds of the roster. Wait, there’s more. Five Islanders have registered a 0 for plus/minus, which means they are breaking even. That means just three Islanders have a plus for the season. THREE! Or just 11.1% of the roster. That outstanding trio includes - Richard Park (+1), Sean Bergenheim (+2), and Blake Comeau (+3). Wow. That’s rough, man. By comparison, Niklas Lidstrom has the best plus/minus in the league at +34. Sort of takes some of the air out of Comeau’s +3.
Here are the most egregious offenders of The Minus Gang - Trent Hunter and Mike Comrie (both at -12), Bryan Berard (-9), and Mike Sillinger (-8). Ain’t pretty at all. In fact, just 12 players in the entire NHL have a worse plus/minus ratio than Hunter and Comrie.
For what it’s worth, nobody has been as bad in this category as Tampa’s Brad Richards and his -25. What’s crazy is that Richards has a solid 38 points (which would be good enough to lead the Isles). What the hell is happening when he isn’t scoring or assisting on goals?
Well I guess I can stop worrying about the Isles scoring drought and start worrying about the team’s defense and hustle. Buffalo outplayed the Isles in every facet of the game last night, an observation I can make even though I spent half the night at the bar for my work holiday party. Came home and watched the game on DVR and was thankful for the fast forward button.
The thing that kills me about the game and a couple of other recent lousy performances, is that the success or failure of the Isles relies on team effort and execution more than anything else. You can say that about a lot of teams in this league but with the Isles it is even more important because they don’t dominate any one aspect of the game - no lightning quick ability to score, or to smother the other’s team’s offense. The Isles need to be the harder working team every night if they want a chance to win. They weren’t against Florida and Boston last week and they weren’t last night in Buffalo. The result, a 5-3 loss in a game they were never really in. Buffalo twice led by three goals and if not for some nifty saves by DP, could have led by more.
Coach Ted did not look happy at all. Here’s what he had to say to Newsday after the game:
“We can’t be behind 4-1 and expect to fight back and score five to win. We just need a better effort.”
“We’ve been pretty patient, giving guys all kinds of opportunities. But patience can only go so long. You have to produce, and you have to work hard. If you don’t maybe somebody else will.”
The latter quote may be a shot at Berard, who took a bad penalty and was late in getting into coverage on several Buffalo rushes. Berard’s ice-time for the game was just a paltry 3:29. Never good when one of your key defenseman logs less ice time than any of his teammates by a whopping six minutes.
That said, Berard wasn’t the only culprit. The Isles looked tired and uninspired for most of the night. They now sit all alone at the bottom of the Atlantic with 30 points, just one game over .500. Looks like it’s gut-check time on the Island. They get a chance to show what they are made of tonight against a mediocre Coyote team that just made the flight from Phoenix. It’s the Isles’ game to win. Let’s see how much they want it.
