Islanders Depth A Strength Heading into Qualifiers

Healthy competition seems like the appropriate phrase to use for New York Islanders Training Camp.
The team is back to being fully healthy - and there's a palpable competition because of it.

The return of Adam Pelech and Casey Cizikas, plus the acquisitions of Andy Greene and JG Pageau at the trade deadline, make the Islanders a deeper team than they were at the NHL pause.
"I think we're deep on the back end and I think we're deep in net," Head Coach Barry Trotz said on a
Wednesday Zoom call with reporters
. "Our forwards, we've got lots of veteran forwards, so we're not blessed with five or six superstars that are going to carry us. We're going to have to do it as a team. I like our depth, right through the organization."
Having more players than places to play them is a good problem to have if you're Trotz, who insisted that roles are up for grabs as the Isles enter their Stanley Cup Qualifier against the Florida Panthers on Aug. 1. Playoff veterans like Derick Brassard, with 99 postseason games under his belt, agree the Isles will need all hands if they want to make a run.
"In my experience in playoffs, it takes more than four lines and six D to win a championship and on this team we have a lot of depth," Brassard said on a
Saturday Zoom call with reporters
. "We have a lot of guys who can play. We'll leave [decisions] to the coaching staff, we'll just worry about our play. But we have a lot of guys who can play and that's dangerous. There's going to be injuries during the playoffs and everyone will be important."

FORWARDS:
Up front, Pageau's addition and a healthy Cizikas gives the Isles enviable depth at center, along with Mathew Barzal and Brock Nelson. Pageau and Cizikas have yet to be in the lineup together, but give the Islanders a pair of key faceoff men (both won 53.5% of their faceoffs this season) and are both more than capable in their own zones. Pageau is expected to see time on the power play and penalty kill as well, per Trotz.
"It's huge having Pageau] on our team," Cizikas said on a
[Monday Zoom call with reporters
. "You could see by that small sample size that when we traded for him to when the season stopped, he was playing in every situation. Having a guy on face-offs, on the PK on that right side is definitely going to help us out a lot, I think… He brings a lot to our team, and I'm excited to get on the ice with him."
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Having Barzal, Nelson, Pageau and Cizikas down the middle helps reset the rest of the lineup. Trotz commended Derick Brassard and Josh Bailey for filling in at center throughout the season and playing out of position, but both will shift back to the wing to start the qualifier. Brassard, who played center in the Isles last game before the pause, has found more offense on the wing this season, including a five-game goal streak back in late October-early November.
There's plenty more competition on the wing as well, be it from veterans like Tom Kuhnhackl and Andrew Ladd, a uniquely physical presence of Ross Johnston, Michael Dal Colle, or rookies like Kieffer Bellows and Oliver Wahlstrom. Rookie Otto Koivula provides some extra depth at center.
"We're looking for chemistry,"
Trotz said on Saturday
. "I said to the guys today, anyone who is on the roster you're going to have to prepare to be in the lineup because we don't know what's going to happen. Not only on the way to the hub, in the hub, injuries, what have you. Everybody is going to get a shot. If we want to do what we want to do and play for a long time, we're going to need a lot of bodies. That's just the way it is. There's a bit of an inner competition in our group."
The return of Cizikas also reunites the Islanders Identity Line. With separate injuries to Matt Martin, Cal Clutterbuck and Cizikas throughout the season, the Isles checking line was limited to 19 games as a full unit. They'll be a welcome addition, especially as the physicality of the playoffs intensifies. Cizikas and Clutterbuck are also the team's most-used shorthanded forwards, so reuniting them should bolster the penalty kill.
"At times this year we were injury plagued, but to have Casey back and add JG at the deadline was huge for our team was huge to add that depth down the middle,"
Barzal said on Saturday's Zoom
. "We really have four lines that can push the pace and each line brings a bit of a different game. Every line kind of throws something different at them, so we have a good mix of skill, compete and hard work. I really like our how forward group shapes up."

DEFENSE:
The Islanders' blue line was already deep heading into the pause and the depth is on full display now that Adam Pelech has returned from an Achilles Tendon injury that kept him out since Jan. 2.
Pelech's return to the lineup is huge for the Islanders, as he completes the top pair with Ryan Pulock and adds a steady presence to a defensively-focused system. Prior to his injury, Pelech averaged the second-most ice time on the team (21:08 TOI/GP), second only to Pulock (21:54), and Pelech's 2:47 SH TOI/GP was second only to Scott Mayfield (2:50). Pelech led the team in blocks (83) and led defensemen in hits (81) before missing the second half.
Before Pelech's injury, the Isles allowed 2.61 goals-against per game, which ranked fifth in the NHL and without Pelech, that number jumped to 3.03 GA/GP, 21st in the league. The drop-off can't just be attributed to Pelech's absence, but having the stable presence back in the lineup should benefit the Islanders, as well as Pulock, who goes back to playing with his regular partner, with a trickle-down effect from there.
"He's a pretty basic player, but very effective player," Pulock said of Pelech during a
Friday Zoom call
. "He is such a steady presence back there and he's such a reliable defenseman. For myself, just playing with him over the last couple of years, it's really helped my game. I think overall as a D core, I think he's just going to bring more stability to our back end. He does a great job every night on shutting down top lines and on the penalty kill."
While the Isles missed Pelech during the season, his absence gave rookie Noah Dobson valuable NHL experience and was part of the reason the team acquired Greene from the New Jersey Devils. In Greene, the Islanders have a savvy, stay-at-home veteran, who finished fifth in the NHL with 155 blocked shots this season. With 50 playoff games on his resume, he's no stranger to postseason hockey. Greene and Dobson spent Saturday's scrimmage as a d-pair and Trotz complimented their play together.
The Islanders also have Thomas Hickey in the mix. While Hickey spent the season with AHL Bridgeport, he's another capable veteran with 449 NHL games and was a key piece of the Islanders' series win over the Florida Panthers in 2016.
Having a healthy Johnny Boychuk - who is recovered from an
eyelid cut that required 90 stitches
- allows Trotz to preserve the Nick Leddy-Boychuk and Devon Toews-Scott Mayfield combos if he chooses. The Islanders coach likes the yin and yang of an offensively-inclined defenseman with a shutdown defender, as well as a lefty-righty split. Leddy and Boychuk bring championship experience while Toews and Mayfield have set into a nice rhythm throughout the past season and a half.
That's nine players, plus rookie Grant Hutton and AHL All-Star Sebastian Aho, the latter has yet to skate at camp, in the mix for six spots. Trotz acknowledged that it'll be a tough call to decide a Game 1 lineup, but stressed that everything is in flux.
"I think everybody recognizes that] some guys are going to have to check their egos," Trotz said via
[Wednesday's Zoom call
. "I don't think that's going to be a problem with our group. I know everybody wants to be in the games, and I said to the guys, 'What we start with might not be what we play the next game with.' You just don't know. But I think they're all very professional, they're all very proud and they're having a little, I'll say, a little competition within the group. They know there's only six spots. There's eight, nine, 10 guys that are very capable of stepping in. Obviously, the guys that we have used in the past have a little leg up on that, but they're all right there and they're battling for, as we say, seating. Next man up mentality."

GOALIES:
In goal, Trotz has both the easiest and perhaps toughest lineup decision. Easy in the sense that both Semyon Varlamov and Thomas Greiss are more than capable goaltenders who turned in solid seasons. Tough in the sense that they were so evenly matched during the year that it's hard to hold one up over the other. Varlamov finished the season with a .914 SV% to Greiss' .913 SV%.
Even their numbers vs the Panthers are similar. Greiss has a 5-2-1 regular season record vs the Panthers for his career, with a 2.10 GAA and a .930 SV%, while Varlamov is 8-3-1 with a 2.65 GAA and a .922 SV%. This season Greiss went 2-0-0 vs the Cats with a 1.00 GAA and a .972 SV% this season while Varlamov went 1-0-0 with a 1.86 GAA and a .946 SV%.
Greiss was also in net for the Islanders series win over Florida in 2016, going 4-2-0 with a 1.79 GAA and a .944 SV%.
With only one exhibition game to give the goalies live rounds, Trotz will lean on his goalie department of Mitch Korn and Piero Greco for their expertise.
Both Greiss
and
Varlamov have been skating
in the weeks leading up to camp, so they've been proactive about finding as many shots as possible to get a feel for the puck before camp.
"I have great trust in both goalies,"
Trotz said on the first day of camp
. "We're going to try to recreate some of those games for them as best we can. We're watching our practices; we're charting who's getting what, all those things. We're going to rely on time. We've got time, and we're going to rely on that time to sort of make that decision."
The Islanders have another week of practice before travelling to Toronto on July 26, which gives all the battles another week-plus to play out. One thing is certain, the Islanders will be icing a deep squad when qualifiers get underway on Aug. 1.
"I think our group moving forward is as deep as can be," captain Anders Lee told
reporters on the first day of camp
. "In a playoff run, in a long run like this, and in an uncertain tournament like this and playoff, we're going to need everybody."