When Nick Leddy first got to the Islanders in a coup of a trade just before the 2014-15 season that pried the slick-skating young defenseman from the salary-cap stalemate in Chicago, he was a revelation. When then-general manager Garth Snow handed him a seven-year, $38.5 million deal, with an annual salary-cap hit of $5.5 million to a promising 24-year-old, it again seemed like a bargain.
Then this past season came, when the Islanders were a defensive mess under former head coach Doug Weight and Leddy posted a historically bad minus-42 rating. Then came this offseason overhaul, with Snow and Weight being relieved of their duties, replaced respectively by Lou Lamoriello and Barry Trotz.
Per Lamoriello’s rules, Leddy had to shave his signature jet-black beard, and the questions were out on whether this new-looking defenseman could still play like his younger version. With his spectacular end-to-end goal in the team’s 4-3 overtime win over the Devils in Newark on Friday afternoon, that question was slowly being put to rest.
“I think this year, really playing that team defense and really focusing on the new system (he’s rediscovered his game),” Leddy said before the second leg of the back-to-back, Saturday night’s game against the Hurricanes at Barclays Center.
“I think last year, you could see there were things I needed to work on in the defensive zone. So I really tried to make a point to do that.”
The declaration from Trotz about what he wanted from Leddy was pretty straightforward, albeit a lofty task.
“I keep telling him, the way for us to be successful is for him to be our best defenseman, plain and simple,” Trotz said. “Night in, night out, try to be that.”
Leddy has always been known as an offensive defenseman, with his terrific skating ability being able to create chances. In his first full year in the league in 2011-12, as a 20-year-old, he has 34 assists. The next year, he was a integral postseason contributor as his Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. He also has scored 10 or more goals in three of his first four seasons with the Islanders.
But Friday night was his first goal, in the 21st game of the season. The hope was that it wasn’t just a single goal, but an indication he is starting to regain some confidence and play with more of that offensive flair that makes him such a rare talent.
“Just like anybody, you want to contribute when you think of yourself as more of an offensive defenseman,” Trotz said. “You want to get some points. Getting some points helps the confidence.”
Yet the focus for Leddy coming into this season has been to get better defensively. He certainly has done that, as the team went from last in the league, allowing 3.57 goals per game, to now 16th, at 2.95 per (a number that jumped a lot higher after allowing 16 goals in the three games prior to Friday night). Individually, Leddy was a minus-3 through 21 games.
But now that he feels a little better in his own end, he wants to take that good feeling and get back to putting up points.
“I think that’s something in my game that I’m trying to do more — become a shooter, and not have that pass-first mentality,” Leddy said. “I think the game is just too fast, and instincts take over.”
Joining Leddy in that summer of 2014 was Johnny Boychuk, another Stanley Cup winner who also was awarded a seven-year deal the next year, his carrying an annual cap hit of $6 million. Yet Boychuk’s injury woes and downturn in play, now at age 34, has made that deal seem like a burden.
Yet Leddy is seen as a leader for a young defensive corps that looks to develop the likes of Ryan Pulock, Adam Pelech and Scott Mayfield.
“I think inside myself, yeah, I would like that,’’ Leddy said. “I try to be the best defenseman every night. Obviously some nights, you won’t be. Just having the positive attitude, and every day is a new day and just keep going.”