Three Takeaways: Changes are Coming to Islanders, but Where? | NYHN+

To say that Barry Trotz was upset about Tuesday’s 3-2 New York Islanders loss to the Washington Capitals would be an understatement.

The Islanders bench boss wasn’t hiding his frustration after the Islanders dropped their second consecutive game and lost because of a Justin Schultz goal with 26.4 seconds left on the clock. The Islanders coach was quite clear that something would change.

Here are three takeaways from the loss to Washington:

Lineup Changes Coming

It was a shot across the bow if there ever was one.

Barry Trotz told reporters that he felt he only had one line contributing on Tuesday night. Considering how prior to the game he had said that the top-six were the ones carrying the offense, it’s easy to figure out who he had been referring to. Add to the fact that only the team’s top line contributed points on the board, along with Noah Dobson, and you can really key in on who Trotz was talking about.

“That’s been a couple of games in a row here,” Trotz said about the lack of production outside of one unit. “We’re going to shake it up. We’re going to put some new people in and go from there.”

The focus has been on the Islanders third line since the start of the season as they’ve tried to piece together a group that works well with Jean-Gabriel Pageau. The injury to Anthony Beauvillier threw an even bigger wrench into the already tricky lineup question. Trotz’s issue was not with Pageau either, telling a reporter during the postgame news conference that “Pager has been fine for me.”

With that in mind, Trotz could be looking at switching out Ross Johnston or Leo Komarov since Pageau doesn’t appear to be the issue. Komarov notably took a late penalty in the game and was on the ice when Washington scored the game-winning goal. He also didn’t have a shot on net.

“This is playoff mentality right now and I’m not quite sure that we’re in our playoff mentality right now, which is really pissing me off,” Trotz said.

Again using the clues that Trotz gave on Tuesday, the fourth line could be in for a change as well.

“I always look at do you have an impact in the game,” he said. “How much impact do you have in your role. We have some guys that don’t have a lot of impact in their roles or their game, so we’ll shake it up.”

The Leo Komarov decision

Boy oh boy was that a rough third period for Leo Komarov.

First, he got called for a five-minute major for boarding Lars Eller and then he was on the ice for the game-winning goal with less than 30 seconds left in the third. Now, it should be noted that there was an argument to be made that the penalty shouldn’t have been a major and that it wasn’t all on Komarov’s shoulders for the Schultz goal.

However, Komarov, who already drew some ire for being in the lineup Tuesday, didn’t do himself or his team any favors with those errors. Even if it wasn’t a major penalty, putting your team down a man at that point in the game killed the momentum the Islanders had.

And after taking a penalty late in the game like that, there was a question of should he have been used as much as he was down the stretch.

“No, I don’t have any regrets,” Trotzs said about putting Komarov on the ice in that situation. “The angel I had I didn’t think it was much of a penalty. I didn’t get all the angels. I’ll look at it closely. I was a little bit more mad at the outcome there, but I trust Leo. Leo has been a good solid player, especially late in games, and detailed and committed. I have no regrets about that at all.”

Noah Dobson Notches First goal of Season

Noah Dobson was the first Islanders defenseman to find the back of the net this season. He has been adjusting well to his new role and had been seeing more minutes.

Dobson finished the night with 17:11 of playing time, which included 4:10 of power-play time.

“It was definitely nice to get one in,” Dobson said. “Just try to throw a puck on net and got a good bounce. I think I just continue to try and get better each game, and learn. Hopefully, keep going on that track.”

The young defenseman had been averaging 19 minutes of ice time entering Tuesday’s game.