Islanders spend training camp practice focusing on power play and penalty kill

The affirmation from all of the precincts went something like this:

It was a day. It was the first day. It was a day to learn. It was a good day.

For an Islanders team that has spent a great deal of time uncomfortably answering questions about the performance of its power play and penalty kill during the last few seasons, the feelings of excitement and optimism that hung in the air at Northwell Health Ice Center on Saturday morning were unmistakable and welcome.

“Confidence is huge [on] special teams,” Scott Mayfield told Newsday after the two-hour session that revolved entirely around the power play and penalty kill. “There were some hard times — especially thinking of last year — where you do lose that [confidence] when you’re getting scored on a lot or when you’re not scoring on the power play. It’s hard to get that back.”

To wit: The performance of the special teams units in the 2024-25 season.

The Islanders ranked 31st in the NHL in both conversion rate on the power play (12.6%) and successful penalty-kill rate (72.2%). After a mid-December practice, coach Patrick Roy blamed himself.

“I feel like [we] should have spent more time on the [penalty kill] and power play in training camp,” he said on Dec. 19. “I’ll take part of the blame on this because maybe I could have put more emphasis on the power play and [penalty kill] during the training camp, but here we are.”

The ineffectiveness of the special team units as well as executive vice president and general manager Mathieu Darche’s willingness to allow Roy to select his own coaching staff cost power-play coach John MacLean and penalty-kill coach Tommy Albelin their jobs. During his introductory news conference at the end of May, Darche said neither MacLean nor Albelin would return, and the organization subsequently announced the hirings of penalty-kill coach Bob Boughner and power-play coach Ray Bennett in early June.

“It’s a new slate right now,” Mayfield said. “We have some new systems, new coaching staff that [are] going to instill some things.”

To that end, according to Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Anders Lee, Boughner and Bennett met with the skaters who are most likely to play on the specialty teams before the on-ice period to explain the scheme and structure of their systems.

Both of which can be reduced to one word: aggressive.

During the on-ice phase, the power play was focused on quick, clean entries into the offensive zone and decisive puck movement in the zone.

“Once we get set [in the offensive zone], I think with the five guys, 10 guys, we’re going to make plays,” Tony DeAngelo said. “We’re going to score goals. To me, entries are the most important part.”

As are defending entries into the offensive zone. Pageau said Bougher wants the penalty-killers to pressure puck-carriers at the zone entry point.

“You always want to push the puck-carrier,” Pageau said. “But now we’re trying a little different approach to where we are going to pressure them.”

So yes, for both units, the first special teams-exclusive day of training camp was a new beginning. And the results won’t be able to be quantified fully until the regular season begins.

But DeAngelo stressed the importance of confidence and chemistry.

“Just getting an understanding of each other,” he said. “It’s good to get some repetition with guys.”