Hi twown We moved all Hockey threads to the Hockey forum. Link is below. https://forums.theganggreen.com/forums/ice-hockey-forum.43/
Can you say more about this, boss? You're talking to a casual fan who turns extreme when the Isles make a run. It seemed for a while that Trotz was the best thing to ever happen.
Yep. Plus, I have said many times, it is very difficult for players to play how Trotz wants. It is truly exhausting and I feel it makes teams wear down come playoff time. The Caps had that great run in 2018, but besides that, Trotz' teams can never hold up. It is possible the Islanders feel like that is not the best chance they have to win a Cup right now, and want to go in a different direction. As you said, they have many young players too. That system might not be right for them. The defense may not be as strong in 2022-23, but the offense should be better and make a more balanced team. I am sure that is their plan, at least.
But the Islanders were clearly overachieving in the playoffs for two years in a row. They were winning the war of attrition series after series, against every even matchup, until they played a team that was just flat-out more talented. But until then, they were the ones wearing the opponents down. Over and over.
Some curious parallels between the 2020-21 Isles and the 2009-10 Jets. Extremely likable teams defying the odds without a lot of flash. Suddenly and shockingly on the doorstep in back-to-back years, but not quite good enough.
Hopefully Lou turns out to be smarter than Woody by not waiting for a prolonged slide before firing Rex.
Yep, but it eventually catches up to you. Great point though, many could argue the Isles overachieved the last couple seasons. Now this year they underachieved. Not sure it warranted moving on from Trotz, but maybe there was more behind the scenes stuff we don't know, similar to his situation in Washington in 2018.
The Isles with Trotz's system are built for the playoffs. The problem is its a tough and exhausting way to play for 82 games in the regular season. You can't play 1-0 , 2-1 type of games all the time.
1). He refused giving more playing time to younger players like Wahlstrom, Bellows, Aho, etc. Instead he kept playing the likes of Josh Bailey, Green and Chara, even when it was pretty obvious that the team wasn't making the playoffs. 2). As someone already mentioned, his style might work in the playoffs (or a short COVID season) but a full 82-game season is a different matter. He did win in Washington, but look at that roster... 3). I've been saying it all season that he's pretty much a Rex Ryan 2.0. His shtick has worn off and the team stopped responding.
Now the question becomes who do you want the Isles to bring in as the next HC? I know he won't step down but I honestly don't think Lou should be the GM anymore. He really hasn't been good going back to the end of his Devils days. He should step down as GM and just remain as President. Let the new GM hire the next HC. We need a management team more in tune with today's game and today's players.
I wouldn’t say his schtick wore off but at the end of the day these guys play to have fun to a great extent, and at some point this style of play only scoring a few goals a game can’t possibly be fun. Especially when the wins aren’t flowing.
Couldn’t agree more, but unfortunately it’s not going to happen - at least not yet. A year from now could be a very different story, especially if the team falls back further, something I think is very possible.
This is not meant to sound like I think Trotz’s firing was a good decision at face value and I’m happy he’s gone, but looking at it critically it makes a lot of sense. The team got exponentially better under him in his first year, but since then there has been significant regression despite the playoff success. it was great year 1 to become a winner grinding out 2-1 and 3-2 games, but I think that excitement came with the expectation that along with the defensive stability we would see offensive growth in subsequent years, which we did not. Maybe overall team regression could be blamed on Lou but individual player regression like we saw from Barzal, Wahlstrom and Beau is clearly on Trotz. if clearly talented offensive players were likely to continue to struggle under Trotz team regression was likely going to continue next year with him. If that was Lou’s read on it why wait another year to move on from Trotz and further hinder the relationship with players like Barzal and Wahlstrom who Lou likely depends on being cornerstones of the team’s success moving forward. IMO Trotz’s success was always on shaky ground. You better build a defensive juggernaut if you are willing to sacrifice offensive production. This season showed how rickety his foundation was. We were still very good defensively but not great, and Trotz is not a valuable coach if his defense isn’t great and winning games on its own. we got lit up the first two games of the year against offensive teams, before the wear of a 13 game road trip can be an excuse. Trotz’s system didn’t dictate the games this season right out the gate unfortunately and his own coaching decisions hindered developing an offense that could compensate for that. again, I’m not saying it is clearly a great decision but it was certainly justifiable when you evaluate the team this year not ignore it as an anomaly and only reference the previous playoff success.
I see a lot of similarities to Trotz with the Isles as I do looking back on UCLA’s initial success under Ben Howland and three straight final fours with a defense first approach. There was a joke in Westwood that the only person who could stop Russell Westbrook was Ben Howland. once Howland’s teams weren’t absolutely dominant defensively his success plummeted because he didn’t coach offense to overcome that. Good defense could not get him wins. The same was likely coming with Trotz. watching the Kings vs Oilers, Barzal should absolutely be able to dictate the action on the ice the way Connor McDavid does, even if he doesn’t score like him. We will see if the Isles have a Westbrook Howland situation base on how Barzal performs under a new coach.
Very rare is the case where top forwards are also well rounded enough to play defense at the level needed to play in Trotz system, those type of players, Patrice Bergeron, Towes, Kane, Mcdavid, are unicorns. The islanders have a chance to still be a good team that can make the playoffs with the right coach replacing Trotz. However if the next coach insist on playing Chara, Bailey, Palmieri in top lines iver younger guys it’s going to be the same thing again. If islanders are going to move forward with youth movement, then they have to do what Rangers did, put the young players on the ice and accept a losing season with expectations that the group will grow together and get them to playoffs. You can’t have an old team and sprinkle in some youth, they need a young team and sprinkle in a couple of veterans to help them grow.
(13) New York Islanders on Twitter: "#Isles News: The New York Islanders announced today that Lane Lambert has been named Head Coach." / Twitter
This did not work when Trotz left the Capitals and they promoted Reirden from within. He was terrible. I do like Lambert more than him though. Sounds like Trotz just loses his teams after awhile. It is tough to be a Head Coach in the NHL. Sounds like promoting Lambert means they don't want to make too many changes, since he will likely be similar to Trotz in style. Barry himself must just rub people in organizations the wrong way. Only explanation I can think of.
