One of the first lessons Lane Lambert must take into his second year as an NHL bench boss comes from the Islanders’ biggest failure of 2022-23.
That would be in building a coherent five-on-four attack after the Islanders’ 15.77 percent power-play conversion rate ranked 30th in the league over the full season and got worse as the year went on.
After a free-agency period in which the only addition to the forward group was Julien Gauthier — and he is very much not an option for power-play minutes — the five-on-four depth chart going into camp reads roughly the same as it did until Game 6 of the playoffs against the Hurricanes.
To refresh your memory, that is a first unit of Noah Dobson, Mathew Barzal, Bo Horvat, Brock Nelson and Anders Lee.
