Defense and Goaltending Is Sinking the Islanders

It was a season that started with high hopes for Islanders fans, but now all they can do is hope that it doesn’t get worse.

Last year, it looked like the team had finally taken the next step to respectability. Star center John Tavares had emerged as one of the top five players in the game, much of his supporting staff up front was reaching new career highs, and the team finally made it back to the playoffs after a five year drought.

That’s a far cry from where the team is now. Tavares has been as good as expected, tied for third in league scoring, yet the team around him seems to have fallen apart, sitting last in the Metropolitan division with only 21 points through 28 games.

So what happened?

For one thing, the offense hasn’t been nearly as effective as last season. While the top line of Tavares, Kyle Okposo, and newcomer Thomas Vanek have been great, the bottom nine has been a mix and match of underwhelming performances, with the exception of Frans Nielsen.

2009 first round pick Josh Bailey is starting to look like he is never going to take that next step offensively and Michael Grabner, a former 30-goal scorer with fantastic speed who the Isles desperately need to jump start the offense, has just two goals.

But those problems up front are nothing compared to the challenges the back end has been having.

Part of the cause can be traced back to the moves that General Manager Garth Snow made (or didn’t make) this past offseason. In 2012-13, the Isles had the worst goals against (2.83) of any of the 16 teams that qualified for a playoff berth, so logic dictates that an upgrade was needed on the blueline or in goal right?

This is a problem that Snow has been aware of for a while. In 2012, the team used, if you can believe it, all seven of their draft picks on defensemen. Yet one of the first things the team did during this offseason was trade away its captain and best defenseman Mark Streit to the Philadelphia Flyers for essentially nothing.

Of course they weren’t going to be able to re-sign Streit anyways, hence the trade, but that just means you go and find a replacement on the free agent market. Except they didn’t.

The team did manage to lock up emerging talent Travis Hamonic for seven years, as well as young Thomas Hickey (a former 4th overall pick who looks more and more like a draft bust with each passing season) and Radek Matinek, who is approximately a million years old by NHL standards, but they didn’t bring in a single free agent from outside the organization. Underwhelming moves at best for a team in desperate need of an upgrade.

So that takes us to today. As a unit, the Isles defense has scored just seven goals and is a minus 29 collectively. 10 different players have suited up on the blueline already, yet veteran Lubomir Visnovsky (who went down with a concussion after eight games and is desperately missed) and rookie Calvin de Haan (who has played just two games) are the only ones not currently sitting in the minus column.

(Note: I personally believe that plus minus is a flawed stat, but it simply can’t be ignored at those extremes.)

The team’s goals against average has ballooned from a mediocre 2.83 in 2012-13 to an abhorrent 3.36 this year. That’s a huge step back for essentially the same defensive corps, yet they can’t take all the blame, as the goaltending has been atrocious.

For whatever reason, Snow and company went back to the well this season with incumbent starter Evegeni Nabokov on a one-year deal. The 38-year-old has been adequate since coming to Long Island, but expecting him to maintain some modicum of that success as his career wanes had proven to be foolhardy.

Through 14 games, Nabokov had a 3.30 goals against average to go along with a .892 save percentage before he went down with a groin injury a few weeks ago, handing the crease over to Kevin Poulin and Anders Nilsson.

The 23-year-old Poulin, who has played at least part of his last four years in the NHL, is having the worst season of his career. He’s lost 10 of his 13 games this year and sports essentially the same statline as Nabokov.

Nilsson, for his part, has not been terrible. He’s started the last two games for the Isles, allowing three goals in each, and managed to keep the team in the game long enough to earn a point. At just 23 years old, he may have the inside track on Poulin at the moment in the competition for the starter’s position.

But let’s have a bit of levity here for a moment. Nilsson has played just seven career NHL games. Neither of these goaltenders has shown anything that indicates they are capable of supporting a team that has playoff aspirations and there is simply nobody else in the organization who can come in and take that role.

So, what comes next? Likely more of the same unless Snow can manage to swing a few big trades and save his team’s season. The Matt Moulson for Tomas Vanek swap looks like it might finally be paying dividends, but it did nothing to address the problems currently plaguing the team.

On a six-game losing streak and with a tough, five-game road trip coming up including stops in St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Jose and Anaheim, Snow has to either pull the trigger on a deal or pray that his team can step up, because this season of disappointment could be all but over by Christmas.

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