Where Do the Islanders Truly Rank? Arthur Staple on a Packed Eastern Conference

Where Do the Islanders Truly Rank? Arthur Staple on a Packed Eastern Conference

A new colleague of ours, Arthur Staple, joins us. His show, the Tri-State Hockey Pod with Mike Rup and our boy Johnny Lazarus drops twice a week here on the Daily Face Off YouTube. Arthur, how have the first couple of episodes with our boy Laz and Ruper been? They’ve been great, even in spite of Laz’s uh exuberance. We’ve uh we’ve managed to rein him in a little bit. His Rangers are kind of trailing the pack of the three teams that we talk about for the moment. I don’t think that’s going to last, but uh yeah, it’s been fun. two guys that I’ve known for a long time and uh good to just chop it up and and talk about three teams that have been really interesting so far this year. Yeah. And the Islanders more on the surprising side of that. I think for a lot of hockey fans, like again, Matthew Schaefer was a first overall pick. Everyone knew there was upside there, but he’s kind of blown a lot of hockey fans minds with just how impressive he’s been. Has he outperformed expectations maybe even inside that Islanders organization a little bit? I mean, beyond what you could have imagined. you talk to any amateur scout or draft expert from what they’d seen. Obviously, he didn’t have a lot of stuff on tape because he missed so much of last season. But yeah, he was kind of the consensus number one pick. But I don’t even think we’ve seen at any level that he’s played at this kind of command of an offense the way that he’s been able to to really drive a lot of what the Islanders are doing. This is Patrick Wah has been since he’s was named coach kind of buted heads with Lu Lamarella about the style that he wanted to play. He wanted to be much more aggressive, uptempo team. And you looked at the Islanders roster before the season, you said, you know, you just don’t see it. You just can’t imagine a world where they could play this quickly. And then you plug Schaefer in and he’s really taken this system that they’re trying to do and run with it. Not just in terms of his skating, which we know is elite, but getting his shot through. He’s got four power play goals as an 18-year-old running their top power play. And in the Islanders power play has been brutal for years. Um, you know, you saw it last night with the power play goal and how that affects things because they go six on five late when they’re down a goal. He has the puck. Two Vegas forwards go right to him, leaving Matthew Barzel open for a one-timer to tie it. So, he he’s having the kind of impact that you’d think maybe a guy who’s got, you know, six, seven years on his second contract would have. And uh I think the Islanders are just completely blown away like everybody else is that this young guy who just turned 18 a couple months ago is doing what he’s doing. Yeah, Arthur, it’s pretty impressive, right, for an 18-year-old, but an 18-year-old when I came in the league is a lot different than the 18-year-olds now, right? They come in with so much confidence and they make plays and they do things that weren’t really accepted then. Does this speed up the timeline for the Islanders? You know, where they’re kind of in that rebuild, but now all of a sudden you get this one player who is a franchise player. Do they start to think, “Hey, we’re closer now to getting back to the promised land and try to speed up that process.” I don’t know if you can rush it, Carter. You know, it that you look at their roster and it’s a little bit of a mismatch. They’ve got some, you know, they’ve got a a pretty large majority of over 30 guys. Um, you know, expiring contracts for guys like Anders Lee, who’s been their captain for a long time, and JG Pio, who might have interested with other teams as they get towards the deadline if the Islanders aren’t in the race. You’ve got Adam Pelock and Ryan Pollock who still have a couple years left on their deals but can still play at a high level. Again, I think they went into this season with a very open mind uh from Matthew Dar and Patrick Wah about what it was going to be. You hope to see even half of what you’re getting from Schaefer and you hope to see rebound from Matthew Barzal who was injured most of last season, rebound from some of their veterans. But if you didn’t get it, you knew that there was some flexibility there. you knew that there was an opportunity to be a seller to kind of again stockpile because really over the summer in addition to winning that first overall pick the trade that they made with the Canadians sending Noah Dobson up there getting back Emil Heinman who’s been another huge surprise for them playing on the top line and those two first round picks where they got a couple guys in Kanes and Victor Ecklund who most people thought were going to go top 10. You’ve got some college players that are going to be coming through here in the next couple years. Danny Nelson out of Notre Dame, Cole Eisermanman at Boston University. So suddenly their prospect pool is looking a lot better than it’s looked uh at any time really during the Lamarillo era. So you do have those futures. You’re not as quite as worried about the present now, but I think it feels maybe like a bonus like gravy to Matthew Dar if they can make the playoffs, which is always the goal here. Since they moved into UBS Arena, they’ve had two first round exits and two times that they’ve missed. the owners are desperate for some gates there and and to get some enthusiasm going in this in this new building. Um, so I feel like they were really open to, you know, plan A, plan B, however far down you wanted to go, uh, to see which path they took. And I think what’s opening up for them right now is Schaefer is much more fully formed than they thought, but they still have these these roster spots where maybe they could upgrade or kind of swap out older guys for younger guys at some point. So, I think they’re still sort of still in that evaluation period for Matthew Dar in his first season as GM. Uh, seeing what they’ve got, seeing if they can put together a run. The East, no one really scares you in the East right now. You see, you I heard you guys talking about the the Leaf struggles. You know, there’s some teams in Toronto, Florida, Washington, the Rangers who’ve kind of got, you know, slow starts for teams that you’d think would be closer to the top. And if the Islanders can get in, you know, they feel like they’ve got good goalending. They’ve got kind of this wild card in Schaefer. They’ve got some some revived veterans. Uh, you know, I think you just sort of see where it goes and not really make too many commitments this early. You know what, like Sroken’s been good, right? Like, you know, he was a guy last year at times it was a tough go, right? Where this year, you know, he just rattled off a bunch of wins in a row here. He’s playing better. Is the impact of Patrick Wah being there and the process of what goes on have impact on these two goalies? I just didn’t know if that’s something that gets communicated to the media there. You know, I think Patrick Wah being Patrick Wah has an impact on everybody. You know, I I remember talking to guys a couple years back when Lou brought him in and you know, it just just kind of marveling at this guy that everybody knows, no matter how young or how old you are as a hockey player. You’ve seen Patrick Ra play. You’ve seen the kind of fiery character he had as a player. You’ve probably seen some clips of him even coaching in in juniors. And there’s guys in this team, you know, Anthony Duclair, who played for him junior. So, I think people know the name and know the presence and know the resume. So, that has an impact of in and of itself. As a goalie, I think sometimes it can have the opposite effect. I don’t know how you feel about it, but you know, he’s he’s a guy who if he’s giving you advice, you better take it because this guy is, you know, one of the two or three best goalies of all time. And maybe it’s not it’s not what the modern goalie is used to. But I think for Siroken, I think we’ve seen in the last couple years, even when he’s had a successful year, he’s worn down a lot. I think he last two years, he really, you know, Lane Lambert’s the end of his run as a coach in that November, December, uh, a lot of overuse for Siroken and I don’t think that he was physically up to being a 60 start guy. Um, you know, I think the sweet spot for him is like in the low 50s, which is why they, you know, with Seaman Varlamov kind of out of the mix. who knows if he’s ever coming back. They made the smart move to go out and get David Riddick, who’s a guy who’s played some games in the NHL and has looked okay as a backup. To allow Siroken to kind of get in a groove, they made a change of goalie coach, Pier Greco, who was brought in with Mitch Korn back when Lou was in charge. He’s out. Sergey Namovs, who was Siroken’s goalie coach over in the KHL, is now in as his day-to-day guy. So, I I think there’s lots of little things here at work that are trying to put Siroken in the best possible position to succeed and really these last few games. We’ve seen him really succeed. You know, he he’s never played very well at Madison Square Garden. Pitches a shut out on his buddy Igor Shurkin in a big win for the Islanders last weekend. I think that’s a good way to kind of jump start for him a run that he’s had, like you said, 40 and one. I think he’s under two goals against, well over 90 save percentage. This is where the Islanders need him to be because they don’t defend very well. The way that they’ve opened things up in their system and they’re kind of mishmashed a little bit beyond those the top pair and beyond Schaefer. Uh they give up a lot of chances. So they need him to be that guy who’s going to be able to stop, you know, n 70 80 90% of those high danger chances to give him a chance to win and he’s doing it of late. I’m hoping this next question makes as much sense coming out of my mouth as it does in my head. But the three teams that you guys cover on the pod, the Rangers, the Devils, and the Islanders, if you were a betting man and you kind of had to rank the odds board of their chances of bringing a Stanley Cup back to the area, how would you rank them? Cuz like obviously this year you would probably have the Rangers and Devils both ahead of the Islanders, but the Rangers are kind of looks like moving towards the end of a competitive window. The Islanders could maybe put themselves in a better spot with that young group going forward. So it’s not this year. It’s a bigger picture multi-year question. rank those three teams on their chances of bringing a cup home. I mean, I gotta put the Devils at the top, not just because of what they’ve been doing so far this year. It’s a really good lineup. You know, I got some questions about goalending. They they get hit with the injury bug, it seems, every year hard and they’re hit getting hit hard again with Brett Peshy and Douggee Hamilton out. Hamilton will be back soon. Peshi’s a little bit longer term, which is a tough blow for them. But when you look at the Hughes brothers, you look at Jesper Brat, who might be the most underrated player in the NHL still, even though he’s he’s, you know, reached really star status for me. Nicoishir, Teeo Meyer, Dawson Mercer, they’ve got probably the best top nine in the East right now. Uh, with Florida, all of Florida’s absences, I I I feel like this jersey team is ready to pop. They had the eightgame winning streak that really showed a lot. They’re still a few tweaks away, I think, from being a serious cup contender, but but I think they’re right there. And I maybe if you drop down, you know, Schaefer definitely changes the game a little bit. The Rangers, I think if we’re looking for a team that’s that could get on a run and get hot, I think the roster right now favors the Rangers. They do have Igor Shurken who’s got a couple of long playoff runs under his belt the last few years. And they do still have elite players like Paneran, Adam Fox, uh Mika Zabanagad, JT Miller, the new captain, Vitz Troche, who’s just come back and kind of sparked their offense a bit. But I feel like if you’re if you’re betting a little longer term, the Rangers probably overtake or the Islanders probably overtake the Rangers because the Islanders have Schaefer. They have a lot of good stuff coming, you know, they might need to reset in the next couple years. They still have Barzal signed long term. Bo Horvat, who not a lot of people are talking about, could end up on the Canadian Olympic team with as good as he’s playing so far this year. I know Vancouver Canucks fans don’t want to hear his name too much, but he’s been awesome so far. uh and they do have Sroken and if he can get hot and uh and stay healthy and stay fresh, you know, I think in two or three years the Islanders roster is going to look vastly different than it does now. And I’m really intrigued to see some of these prospects kind of come through and what they can become. I don’t know if Patrick Wild is the guy that’s going to bring them uh up to a certain level, but if you know, you could see them in a couple years being like an Anaheim was going into, you know, going out of last season with a mix of some young guys and some decent vets and maybe a coach away from putting it all together, at least in the short term, the way the Ducks have done under Joel Quenville. So, you know, if I’m a betting man right now, I’m putting my money on the Devils, but I think the Islanders are kind of creeping up that uh that that ranking a little bit. Don’t worry about upsetting Kucks fans. They all turned off the show when we roasted their offseason 15 minutes ago. Arthur, appreciate your time. Tri-State Hockey Pod twice a week right here on the Daily Face Off YouTube. You can also find his work at Hockey Nighty. Thanks for popping on. You got it guys. Thanks a lot. 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Arthur Staple from Hockey Night in New York joins the show for The All 32. He’ll dive into the New York Islanders and where they stand in an Eastern Conference that features only one team below a .500 points percentage.

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