GM/coach Mike Milbury said following Saturday’s 4-3 overtime loss against San Jose that he would “have to do something in the next 48 hours to get it going in the right direction.”
He did not fire the head coach, he did not promote any minor- leaguers, he did not pull off a trade. What did Milbury do to try to stop the Islander bleeding? Milbury held, ahem, meetings.
Meetings? Milbury met individually with a handful of players, including struggling center Bryan Smolinski, and staged a full-scale team meeting “to clear the air” and underline all that’s gone sour during a 3-12-2 stretch that has curdled another season.
So when the Blackhawks visit the Coliseum tonight, all should be fine and dandy, right? “I’m satisfied with the way the meetings went but that doesn’t mean anything when the game starts,” Milbury said. “The results don’t come from some meeting. Talk is cheap.”
The only legit excuse the Isles (13-23-2) have to explain their miserable predicament is that at no point during this season have all their top players been on the ice together. Once Ziggy Palffy returned from a contract holdout six games ago, goalie Tommy Salo (broken finger) and defenseman Bryan Berard (strained groin) went out of the lineup. Salo, after missing six games, likely returns tonight. Berard is a week away.
“The answers lie in the room,” Milbury repeated in explaining why no trades or callups were made. “We have a pretty good nucleus here.”
After Palffy, the scoring nucleus consists of Smolinski, captain Trevor Linden and center Robert Reichel. Smolinski is goal-less in 12 games, pointless in six and has two points in the last 11. Linden is goal-less in four and has just two goals during this 17-game nightmare. Reichel is goal-less in 14 games.
“Bryan, Robert and Trevor are guys we’re counting on for goals and we’re not getting it right now, especially even-strength goals,” said Milbury.
Smolinski, who had a hot start, admitted he felt tired in the Saturday matinee against San Jose. “I need to score,” Smolinski said. “If I don’t get my feet moving, everything else lacks in my game. When that happens, I’m just an average player. When I score, the team wins. With Ziggy back, we have more firepower. Once Trevor and I get in the swing of things, we’re going to be fine.”
“He’s fallen off,” Milbury said. “We talked about it and he knew it. He didn’t have his legs or his jump.”
Milbury addressed other flaws: the neutral-zone turnovers; failure to drive hard to the net for rebounds; getting the puck deeper to sustain a fiercer forecheck, mindless penalties and showing no pulse on the power play on the road. (Following tonight’s game, the Isles will play their next five on the road).
In a bizarre stat, the Isles own the league’s best power-play record at home at 28.2 percent and the third-worst away from the Coliseum at 10.3 percent. They’ve scored 22 power-play goals in 78 chances at home and just eight in an identical 78 opportunities in road games.
“Focus is probably an issue [on the road],” Milbury said. “And we’re not playing as a team. We’re not sending out unit after unit. We’re sending out individual after individual.”
In an attempt to regain cohesiveness, Milbury will to stick with the same lines for a few games. Since Palffy’s return, Milbury has scrambled them up even more than usual. Milbury will reunite last year’s Euro-Line of Reichel-Palffy-Sergei Nemchinov and regroup his most effective trio from early on – Linden-Claude Lapointe-Smolinski. Milbury will string Mike Watt, Mariusz Czerkawski and Mark Lawrence on a third line.