URGENT: New York Islanders Playoff Hopes— Patrick Roy & Anders Lee CALLED OUT to DELIVER Consistency

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The New York Islanders have 10 games left to make the playoffs.

We'll talk about why some of the same old problems are surfacing and what could possibly

be done to fix it next on today's Lockdown Islander's bonus podcast.

Your Lockdown Islanders, your daily podcast on the New York Islanders, part of the Lockdown

Podcast Network, your team every day.

Gilmorton here.

Welcome everybody to the Wednesday bonus episode of the Lockdown Islanders podcast, part

of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

We have got a lot to discuss on today's show.

Can the Islanders get back on track?

What will it take and what's the problem with leadership on this team?

We'll break that down and maybe propose some solutions with this team.

We will also dip into the mailbag and answer some of your questions as we head into the

final 10 games of the season.

I don't know about you, but I have to say that reading post-game quotes from Patrick

Wah, from Anders Lee, the captain, and from some of the other players as well, gets a

little frustrating at times.

And I'll explain why.

No matter what happens, this team always says almost to a man, whether it's the coach,

the captain, and other player, we played well.

It's just something, you know, one or two bad bounces, one or two mistakes, and it ended

up in the back of the net and we lost a game that we easily could have won or really should

have won.

Here's what Patrick Wah said after Tuesday night's embarrassing performance against the

Chicago Blackhawks.

I thought we were playing a really solid game and controlling the game and playing really

well.

A couple of turnovers made the difference.

Well, maybe, but let's take it a step further.

Let's please take it a step further.

It wasn't just a couple of turnovers.

It was turnovers, yes, it was a failure to be ready to play when the puck was dropped

for the opening face off.

The islanders played really well for the first five minutes of the game and then for the

rest of the first period and most of the second period, they were not the better team.

It was a failure to back check adequately to get back in time against an opponent who

you should on paper, especially at home, be beating.

It's leaving your goalie hung out to dry and it's a real problem.

And to hear the players and the coaches make these kinds of excuses and to sort of downplay

their struggles, it gets old and the thing you want it here, if you're a fan and I get

it, the team is going to protect the coaches not going to call out as players in the middle

of the to the media necessarily, even though that can be done if you do it the right way.

That can be done without causing a specific player embarrassment, but you want to hear

these guys take responsibility and you're not hearing that and that's the frustrating thing.

You want to hear these guys say something to the effect that what we did wasn't good

enough and we've got to play better.

You know, here's Anders Lee after the game.

We had some turnovers that ended up in our net and then you get a shot off that goes off

a body behind the goalie and it's 3-1.

Other than mistakes, it has nothing to do with our intensity or will to win.

We just messed up.

That's going to happen.

You saw that the rest of the way tonight.

And you know, it's, you know, Patrick Wah, another quote, I feel like we play as a team,

we win as a team.

There's mistakes in the game, it's part of the game.

The back checking for us is important.

I get it.

I get that, you know, yes, you outshot them, you had 47 shots on goal.

But when you lose a game, you should have won and when you don't play up to expectations.

See, you know, these quotes, yes, we dominated, yes, we played well enough to win.

No, it was just a couple of mistakes.

It's almost the equivalent, obviously, no life and death here, but it's like besides

that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

You can't make these kind of mistakes over and over again.

And it is very many of the same mistakes and just say we played pretty well.

You played really well in the third period after you were down four to one.

It was too little, too late by the time that happened.

And the mistakes that you made, which are similar mistakes to what this team has been making

all year when they struggle, you have to address them.

You don't have to call a particular player out.

For example, Matthew Barr's all did not have a good defensive game against Chicago.

He did not hustle back on the first Chicago goal, the two on none break away that ended

up being the goal was actually scored by the trailer on a two on none, which really should

be inexcusable.

And yes, I know Tony D'Angelo was injured on that play.

But seriously, the first three players to the puck were all Chicago black hawks.

That's not acceptable.

And it was a giveaway by Barzal that were a couple of the turnovers that Patrick Y and

Anders Lee alluded to.

And you don't need to call out Matthew Barr's all to the media.

You don't well ought to be calling him out in the locker room or one on one in a meeting

if you want to do it that way.

I'm not going to tell Patrick law, you know, how he should talk to his players.

But that he should talk to his players, absolutely.

And you know, you could say to the media, we need to be better back checking.

When we make a mistake, we are coverage needs to be better.

We cannot have defensive breakdowns and that's not just on the defenseman.

There are things you could say and ways you could say it that hold the players accountable

at least in the ears and eyes of the fans that would not necessarily call out a particular

player and make them look bad to the public.

And it's a problem that I see with leadership on this team.

It seems to be great at creating a sense of togetherness at times.

They seem to really genuinely like each other, the players in this locker room.

And that's great.

I love seeing that.

But at times do they stand up for each other when one of them is, you know, given a cheap shot?

No, not enough.

Do they call each other out?

Do they take responsibility?

Is there enough accountability in this locker room?

No.

And again, we're seeing the same problems over and over again.

And I get it.

Look.

Here's why it was even more frustrating in my mind the way they played against the Black Hawks.

Patrick Wah decided to go with David Riddick in goal.

And it made sense if David Riddick was going to at least play, you know, pretty well.

Doesn't have to be outstanding.

But if he was going to give you a solid B performance against Chicago, if your team plays the right way, you should win.

And you're already down Ryan Polak and I know Alexander Romanov is out for the season.

And then, you know, six minutes or so into the game or halfway through the first period, rather.

You're without Tony D'Angelo for the rest of the game.

That means you're missing three of your top six defenseman if you count Romanov.

And you're down to five defensemen for the rest of the game.

And you've got your backup goalie in this to me says more than anything.

If we want to win this game, we need to back check.

We need to clamp down on Chicago who has some very talented offensive players young, but talented on their roster.

Defense back checking coverage should have been priority one and we saw how well that worked Sunday against Columbus.

It's not like this team couldn't do it wouldn't do it. They just did it.

And instead, it was like back checking is optional and it can't be optional.

So here we are right back to square one.

There are 10 games left and now we need to see the urgency, the consistency, a 60 minute effort, not a 25 or 40 minute effort and urgency.

This team still controls its own destiny. There are 10 games left.

If you go seven, two and one, 15 points, maybe seven and three would do it.

14 points out of 20 gets you in the playoffs.

Eight of the 10 games are at home. Go get those points.

If the New York Islanders do not make the playoffs and we'll talk about, you know, after the season is over, after hopefully the playoffs are over, we'll break down the good, the bad and the ugly of the season.

We're all offseason at Lockdown Islanders, but it's got to be.

You got to hold your guys accountable and you got to be better than this and it's frustrating as heck to watch this team make the same mistakes over and over again.

We have got more to get to on today's show.

We'll talk about your questions as we dip into the mailbag.

We've got that and more coming up on today's Lockdown Islanders podcast.

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Let's check out the mail bag and get to your questions.

This first one is from can in Minnesota.

Hey, Gil, we've probably talked about this in the past, but something that drives me nuts still is the islanders inability to get the puck out of their zone.

They keep trying to go up the walls when it just doesn't work.

I don't know what the solution is to that, but it bums them out all the time more physically.

I feel more physicality.

I feel wouldn't hurt if opposing teams knew they were going to get rocked in the zone.

I feel like they wouldn't be so confident in the islanders offensive zone.

I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Thanks for all you do wishing you good health can in Minnesota.

Can thanks for the kind words and the well wishes.

I appreciate that and it's a good question.

And I mean, I think there's a bunch of answers.

Would more physicality help.

Yes.

I think you make a good point that the islanders do try to go up the walls most of the time and it doesn't work.

And you want to know one of the reasons it doesn't work.

Teams are expecting it.

One thing that you kind of have to do in sports and hockey is no exception.

Mix it up a little bit.

Sometimes you pass it out.

Sometimes you go up the boards.

Sometimes you skate it out.

There are different options out there.

And when the other team knows exactly what to expect, what exactly you're going to do next,

that really makes it easier for them to game plan and execute a game plan that will counter what you're trying to do.

So look going up against the wall to get the puck out of the zone is safer.

Most of the time you don't want to go out across the middle.

And you know, pass the puck into the middle of the ice.

If the pass is intercepted, they're already in a high danger scoring chance.

I get it.

But pass the puck up the wall.

Skate the puck out.

Drop passes.

If you're sure about what you're doing, absolutely can work on occasion.

Mixing things up.

You mentioned being more physical.

I have to agree this team could use more physicality desperately.

And again, overall, you need to vary things and mix them up in order to keep the opposition off balance.

And even if it's like 60% of the time you go up the wall and 40% of the time you do something else.

It's better than what they're doing now, which is like 85-15, right?

I mean, again, when you know something is coming, it is a lot easier to stop it.

And I'm hoping sincerely that we see this team kind of figure out what to do and mix things up.

So that's where we stand right now for this Islander's team.

Hopefully they can fix things and can thank you very much for the question.

Next one comes from our friend Christopher in the Bronx.

Hi, Gil, important question.

I saw your bonus episode the other day and it got me wondering.

Shouldn't the league or whoever is in charge be held accountable for this grave error?

I don't know about you, but I think they should be.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks for responding.

Yeah, there have been a lot of grave errors.

The goalie interference call is one.

The you can go to another one.

The icing call that shouldn't have been against the black hawks last night where they admitted that it should have been icing.

They didn't call icing and yeah, after the game, the NHL admitted they made a mistake on that call and you know that and you know five bucks will get you a cup of coffee, right?

I mean, you're not going to actually get the game overturned or the outcome changed.

Obviously, the league like anybody else, the people in the war room, the people in the department of player safety, the people who are supervising the referees, they all should be graded.

They all should be held accountable for the mistakes they make and the good things they do, they should be rewarded for.

That is the nature of the business and I'm hoping because the league does not tell us these things, but I'm hoping that that is indeed happening behind closed doors.

Now, department of player safety is a hot mess right now and every time that the league or George Paros himself tries to defend what they're doing, they make it look worse because they sound so out of touch with what everyone else is seeing.

That's a problem, as far as the icing call, yeah, that was a mistake, at least the league admitted it and again, hopefully the linesman involved will receive a poor grade for that game and will be spoken to by the officials, look, here's the bottom line.

It's human error and that's never going to be 100% solved.

Now, as far as the Anders Lee no goal on goalie interference, that was a terrible call.

The war room did not get it right on the fact that they overturned it even though there was not incontrovertible visual evidence that you know that should have been called.

So the call on the ice should stand unless there is, you know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, proof that it should be overturned under no circumstances was that the case.

But the best we can hope for is as fans is that either people are let go or given, you know, poor grades and demerits or that changes are made to the way the league uses the replay and how the war room does things.

Because let's face it, it ain't pretty out there right now and these problems just seem to be pervasive around the league, but I'll say this and I know it's probably not going to make you very happy.

Christopher and really all of us as fans, even if they do some of the things that I'm talking about we're not going to be told that that's what they're doing.

So for better or for worse, we're not going to know unless somebody gets fired and even then, you know, maybe George Paros at Department of Player Safety if he gets let go will know about that he'll probably resign, put that in air quotes if you want, if the change is made.

But ultimately, ultimately, hopefully the league sees the problem and addresses it and if they don't shame on them because one thing that you cannot compromise is the integrity of the game and if the NHL keeps making these kinds of mistakes over and over and over again.

And their integrity is going to be hurt and I see on YouTube comments and social media comments and increasing number of fans saying, oh yeah, these games are fixed air quotes.

I don't think they are, but the fact that more and more people start to feel that way cannot be good for hockey.

So Christopher, thank you for the question. It was a good one and again, everybody send in your mailbag questions. We are, especially while we're doing these bonus episodes, we have plenty of time to answer them and we will get to them as quickly and as often as we can.

We've got more to get to on today's show some final thoughts and some injury news coming up next.

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And this is the perfect time to check out the every day or club.

You'll get ad free episodes of locked on Islanders and access to a group chat on discord with me and other listeners of this show.

Tap on the link in the show notes or go to locked on islanders dot supercast dot com for more information.

No update yet on Tony D'Angelo. We're hoping to hear something soon. He was going to be reevaluated by a doctor on Wednesday, but we have not gotten any word as to what the prognosis is.

It did not look like an injury that he would come back from very quickly like that he wouldn't miss a game or two at least.

But we still don't know now for what it's worth. The islanders did send Isaiah George back to Bridgeport, but they are playing a game tonight.

So it could just be they'll send them down. He'll play for Bridgeport and then they'll call him back up in time for him to face Dallas on Thursday.

Again, we'll keep you up to date on that on Twitter and really here on our regular and bonus episodes.

Because we hear something you will hear something. If you have a question, a comment, maybe a topic you'd like us to discuss on a future episode.

Email us at locked on islanders at gmail.com. If you leave your first name and where you're from, we're happy to mention you on the show when we discuss whatever's on your mind.

You could follow the show on X at locked on aisles. You could follow me, Gil Martin on X at ice wars and why are the SMYI will keep you up to date on all things islanders all year long.

And I am live tweeting during nearly every islanders home and road game.

So join me for a little instant insight and analysis and it's great to talk islanders hockey with you game time or anytime.

Every day is we're back tonight with our regularly scheduled Friday show, a Thursday show, excuse me.

And we will preview tonight's game against the Dallas stars and have the latest islanders news notes and happening.

So make sure you join us for that until then have a great day. Everybody stay safe. And of course, let's go islanders.

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