The often disappointing New York Islanders have at least one thing going for them early in the new season. They are a high-scoring, entertaining bunch.
The Isles’s attacking style has produced a league-leading 32 goals and propelled them to the top of the Metropolitan Division of the Eastern Conference with a 6-2 record.
It is an encouraging start for a franchise that has missed the play-offs six of the past seven seasons.
But if the Islanders are still looking over their shoulders, it is because their opponents are scoring almost as prodigiously.
The defence has given up 27 goals. Their games are as much short-track speedskating as they are hockey.
After a recent 7-5 victory over the Dallas Stars, goalie Chad Johnson said: “It was kind of a shoot-out there for awhile. But I don’t think we want to be in games like that all the time.”
Not going by NHL history, which tends to favour teams with stingier defence and goaltending, not just high-flying offence.
Johnson has been sharing time in the nets with Jaroslav Halak, and neither has done much to win the No 1 job outright.
Their save percentages are almost identically horrid, Halak barely leading at 89.3 to 89.1.
Coach Jack Capuano is not sweating the defensive lapses much, yet, perhaps because he is mesmerised by the heady number of wins for his perennial losers.
After the victory over Dallas, he talked about the team’s fast start and how it has eliminated the game-deciding “blunders” that plagued them in the past.
“We had games last year where we outplayed people and lost,” he said.
The fun side – the offence – is still led by their star centre, John Tavares, who has three goals and eight assists for a team-leading 11 points.
This year he has lots of help. Right wing Kyle Okposo and centre Brock Nelson each have 10 points, and Nelson has five goals.
So prolific are the scoring chances that nine-year veteran Frans Nielsen from Denmark even recorded the first hat-trick of his career.
“We wanted to make a statement in the beginning,” Nielsen said of his improved team, and its quick start. “So far, we’ve done that.”
If nothing else, it promises to be a razzle-dazzle end to the franchise’s last season in Nassau County, in the Long Island suburbs of New York.
After 42 years, the team is moving into the city, to the borough of Brooklyn next year.
If the once proud franchise – the Isles won all four of their Stanley Cups consecutively from 1979-83 – can mix in enough defence, their farewell season on the island might even feel nostalgic.
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