Fourteen games over in a playoff spot was far beyond my preseason projections as teams filled with prospects ran rings around the veterans. There were big concerns about Drouin being done and a bust as he looked overmatched. I saw an old team off a bad year with a terrible powerplay plus a lineup filled with veterans who could not score or play defense. Then they doubled down with Palat, and now Schenn/resigning a player like Pageau who gives them nothing but an occasional goal off a bounce.
Last season this team had 28/65 games with two goals or fewer, this year it's 33/65 games. More then 1/2 games the New York Islanders score fewer then two goals. Shabanov's agent made clear he's not happy with how he's been used in an article where his ten minutes against the Blues is not enough.
But here we are in a conference where 91 points/11 over was the playoff cut the last two seasons, at fourteen over it does not look nearly enough as Columbus looks to be the second seed. But they are fourteen over 500. regardless of how they got there.
#NYC #NYI #isles Last season New York had 28/65 games with two goals or fewer. This year it's 33/65 games with two goals or less.
— New York Islander Fan Central (@NYIFANCENTRAL) March 12, 2026
Did I expect all this overtime success 10-0? Never, but it seems the strategy in regulation that would explain so many games with two goals or less. In 3/3 play New York does not gamble, they don't press, they hold the puck, keep opposition to the outside, wait for the other team to gamble, and when they turn the puck over, New York scores on breakaways or odd-man rushes. It's not conventional, it does not explain how they get to so many overtimes. Do I think it's sustainable? Not really with so many games finally coming wearing blue jersey's where the pressure is there to put on a show/push the offense. Having written this the games are starting to dwindle, and I do think it's could take twenty over as it did in 2021-22 to qualify. Can they do that against fast/skilled/desperate teams like Columbus, Pens, Montreal, Ottawa? I am skeptical.
As for this team Schaefer is an MVP canidate, without him they are worse then last season, it's the goals/points/defense/25 plus minutes a game. And Pelech, Pulock are giving all they can with Sorokin/Rittich who have held them in with a powerplay as bad as 2024-25.
We'll see they are committed long term with so many aging unproductive vets who are not UFA, plus likely signing Lee, this group will be back.
For now more big games with playoff implications, what I hardly expected back in preseason.
If they can bounce in pucks, play this style for 65 games and be 14 over in a playoff spot, it has to be written they can continue to do so and qualify. If only some of these vets produced to their career norms they would have more goals, but likely would allow more. I want to be positive but realistic.
New York is twelth out of sixteen team in goals scored in the eastern conference, and twenty six in powerplay goals where the differential is two vs thirty second.