At the onset of training camp, the Islanders spoke of being more aggressive under new coach Lane Lambert. Now, five games into the preseason, there is a better idea of what exactly that entails.
The Islanders’ defensemen are getting up on the rush more often and more involved in the play offensively. They are applying pressure in all three zones. They have given up some odd-man rushes … and gotten some of their own in return.
It is not — and is unlikely to ever be — chance-for-chance hockey. But it is certainly a more open game than the Islanders played under Barry Trotz for the past four seasons.
“I think it was evident, especially in the third period, where we kept a lot of pucks alive in the offensive zone,” Lambert said following a 5-2 victory Thursday over the Devils, in which defensemen accounted for a goal (Noah Dobson) and two primary assists (Ryan Pulock and Paul LaDue). “In order to create a little bit more, our defense have to get active for sure.”
The Islanders looked very much in the midst of a learning curve during their first two preseason games, both of them lopsided losses. Things have looked smoother of late, however, with three straight wins, the one Thursday being the most emphatic.
And then there was Islanders captain Anders Lee on Thursday morning, saying something that never would have been said a year ago.
“When you’re sometimes backing up or playing it safe,” he said, “you’re not really gonna create on the other end of it.”
How much of that ends up being rhetoric and subtle change as opposed to wholesale reinvention will become more clear once the season starts, and most likely it will end up somewhere in the middle. It is, however, more than might have been expected when Lambert — Trotz’s top assistant coach at three stops before he was elevated this spring — was originally hired.
“I think they’re embracing it and they’re trying to embrace it,” Lambert said. “It’s a little bit of a different mindset and a slight change in mentality that is taking some time. But I like the steps they’re taking in that.”
Cal Clutterbuck, Scott Mayfield and Oliver Wahlstrom remained unavailable for undisclosed reasons. Wahlstrom skated on his own on Thursday morning.
Aatu Räty and Simon Holmstrom were recalled for the game, presumably due to others being unavailable, after being assigned to AHL Bridgeport on Wednesday. Räty limped off after taking an Alexander Romanov shot off his right leg in the second period, but quickly returned to the game and later scored on a hard wrist shot from the slot at 9:23 of the third.