All year long, the Islanders have been outrunning their defensive analytics, so maybe it is not a shock that in two pivotal games against the Penguins and Sabres, the results started to catch up.
The Islanders were not knocked below the playoff cutline with those two defeats, though they head into Friday’s home match against the Flyers with minimal cushion over the Senators, Red Wings and Philadelphia.
There are six games left in their season, and each of them is of the utmost importance.
So, too, is making life easier for Ilya Sorokin, who is likely to start at least five of the last six, with Saturday’s game in Carolina the only spot in which David Rittich might get a look.
Sorokin’s Vezina Trophy campaign could get over the line if the Islanders make the playoffs, and has been the single biggest reason for the disconnect between his club’s expected and actual goals allowed.
The goaltender cannot do it all by himself, though, and the Islanders can only learn that the hard way so many times.
“We want to do a good job in the inner area,” coach Patrick Roy said. “Meaning that when the puck’s behind the net, make sure we get good body position. Make sure we got good sticks protecting that net front. I think our expected goals against was a little high [against the Sabres] because of those areas.
“When the puck goes to the goal line, they like to take a shot from the blue line, we like to front. But if you front, you need to block the shot. So we need to do a better job and maybe clean up a little bit here and there. You don’t have to do a lot. I’ll give you an example: When we played Pittsburgh, [Sidney] Crosby had two plays behind the next. He came in front, it’s probably .40, .50 [xG]. So you clean up a couple goals like this, makes a big difference at the end of the night.”
Of course, the chances — and Roy pointed out it’s only a few per game — that carry a high expected goals against do so because they are Grade-A looks.
The analytics merely put a number on what everyone can see: Protect the inner slot and the areas below the hashes and the Islanders will cut out the opposing team’s best chances.
“I think we can protect the middle a little bit better,” Brayden Schenn said. “Shifts are gonna happen where you get caught in your own end. You have to force plays, keep it to the outside. I think all in all, we need to be a little better defensively, which ultimately leads to more offensively.”
Granted, that’s easier said than done, and won’t ever be perfect. But there’s a lot of ground to cover between perfect and the last couple of games. For example, the Sabres’ third goal Tuesday night, when no one picked up Peyton Krebs in transition, allowing him to streak in and get on the end of Alex Tuch’s pass, is the sort of thing that shouldn’t happen.
“A little bit of over-back-checking,” Scott Mayfield told The Post. “We’re trying to collapse the house and there’s a guy behind. But there’s kind of been different things that have been happening. I think in the end, we all know the way we need to play.”
That would be aggressively, getting the puck in the offensive zone and forechecking it to keep it there. It’s easiest to defend by playing offense, after all.
As for when that’s not working?
“In the D-zone, it’s all about closing quick,” Mayfield said. “I think when we let them get time and space, we kinda get a little mixed up on whose guy is who, it gets tough. When we’re getting in there, closing: hit, pin, find a puck — I think that’s when we’re at our best.”
