The Islanders' identity: Some bad, some good, but there's promise

LAS VEGAS — The Islanders have presented a hazy picture so far of exactly what they’re going to be this season.

And that’s not a negative.

That’s an acknowledgement they may be more than the team that slogged through the past two seasons, missing the playoffs last season and being eliminated in the first round the season before.

They may actually be star-based at all three positions given goalie Ilya Sorokin’s last four games, No. 1 overall pick Matthew Schaefer’s remarkable start to his NHL career as a defenseman and top-line center Bo Horvat’s blistering goal-scoring pace.

They are, often enough, exciting to watch. Dare we say, fun?

The remaining five games of this seven-game road trip will tell a significant tale, starting against Vegas on Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena and continuing against fellow Western Conference contenders Utah, Colorado and Dallas before the trek ends in Detroit on Nov. 20.

So far, so good on the road as the Islanders (8-6-2) added to the Rangers’ home miseries with a 5-0 win at Madison Square Garden on Saturday and ground out a 3-2 overtime victory against the Devils on Monday night at Prudential Center.

“You always want to start a road trip off on the right foot and those are two, tough games, both rivalry games,” said Mathew Barzal, who scored the overtime winner against the Devils. “We’ve got five more tough games coming up but I like the way we’re playing right now. I think we have the confidence to go into any building right now and be competitive and have a good chance of winning.”

Still, Monday’s match showed both sides of the Islanders’ split personality.

They were ragged at the start, having trouble connecting on passes or sustaining offensive-zone pressure. They kept taking penalties at bad moments. But Sorokin, making 33 saves for a second straight start, kept the Islanders close. Horvat scored his 12th goal and sixth in a six-game point streak and the Islanders overcame defenseman Simon Nemec’s deflected equalizer with 4.7 seconds left in regulation.

The Islanders are still too inconsistent — be it game to game or period to period — to have anything more than a hazy picture of who they are. Especially given how tight — and, perhaps, mediocre — the Eastern Conference is as a whole. The Islanders’ 18 points leaves them just five behind the Devils for the conference lead but just four points ahead of the cellar-dwelling Sabres.

Yet the Islanders’ current 4-1-1 streak gives hope to a clearer understanding of their identity.

So does their recent special teams’ play. They killed off both of the Rangers’ power plays and the Devils’ final three, including two crucial third-period kills, after allowing an early man-advantage goal. The power play, which entered the road trip just 1-of-22 away from UBS Arena, generated a goal against both the Rangers and Devils.

“Probably the best power play in the NHL, if not one of the best,” coach Patrick Roy said of the Devils, sixth in the league on the man advantage at 11-for-43 (25.6%). “And I thought our guys were unbelievable on the penalty kill. The blocked shots and the way we cut those lines. And when it wasn’t there, Ilya was phenomenal.”

Sorokin is on a personal 3-0-1 spurt, having allowed just six goals in that span.

Horvat seems hellbent on forcing his way onto the Team Canada roster for this February’s Winter Olympics in Italy, possibly to be joined by Schaefer.

“You just try to stay even keel,” said Horvat, who settled for 28 goals and 29 assists in 81 games last season after topping 30 goals in each of the previous three seasons. “You can’t rely on the hockey gods. You’ve got to rely on playing as a team, your structure, your work ethic. Other things will take care of themselves. I think that’s what we’re doing a good job of focusing on right now.”

Who are these Islanders? It’s still a bit hazy to say.

And that’s potentially a really good thing.

By Andrew Gross

andrew.gross@newsday.comAGrossNewsday

Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.