The Islanders are out of a playoff spot at the All-Star break, and Patrick Roy has been their head coach for all of a week.
But already they are feeling such a difference in the room that Mathew Barzal was talking about titles Saturday morning.
“At the end of the day, we’re building a blueprint that is going to allow us to become champions,” Barzal said before the Islanders faced the Panthers. “That’s really what it is and I feel like there’s a lot of trust in this room with that blueprint that it is gonna allow us to be champions one day. That’s the biggest thing, just the blueprint right now. I like where we’re headed.”
Whatever else could be said about this Islanders team, it is a group that has rarely wavered in its own self-belief.
Toward the end of Lane Lambert’s tenure, even that had probably started to falter.
Roy has it back.
All the way back.
“We’re confident, and we’re building towards something right now,” Barzal said. “Whether we win the next 30 games or it goes the other way, we’re building something in this room and a culture. I feel it shifting and I like the way it’s headed.”
Even as the Islanders lost two of their first three games under Roy, the advanced numbers have shown a surge in the percentage of chances going in the Islanders’ direction.
So too have the possession stats that Roy regularly cites.
And that is with the Islanders still in the process of taking in what Roy is teaching, spending an intense morning skate Saturday working on their neutral zone for the first time under the new head coach.
No one is harboring delusions about the path ahead of the Islanders this season.
Even Barzal, when asked about Zach Parise coming out of retirement with Colorado instead of the Isles, said it probably had to do with the Avalanche’s Cup chances compared to theirs.
The Islanders need a strong second half to get in the playoffs, let alone win 16 games in the tournament.
But the shift in the team’s mood over the last seven days is palpable.
So is the shift in the standard to which they are being held.
“I think the standard is to be a certain way every single day, regardless of the circumstance, and obviously we were inconsistent,” Cal Clutterbuck told The Post. “And inconsistency comes from not holding yourself to the standard every single day. Inconsistencies come in all shapes and forms and they were kinda creeping up in different areas. If you want to be successful and consistent in a league that’s competitive every day, you can’t have it.”
A lot of the same players — Barzal and Clutterbuck included — were in the dressing room when the Islanders were back-to-back NHL semifinalists a few short years ago. Slowly but surely, the habits that got them that far eroded.
Roy is trying to build new ones, bringing an entirely different philosophy than that preached by Lambert and Barry Trotz.
To hear the Islanders tell it, that is exactly what was needed.
“There’s gonna be some old habits that creep in,” Barzal said. “It’s like anything. It’s like when you come back from a summer and you played shinny all summer, you’re back in a real game, you’re backchecking and that kind of stuff. I think we’re working on it.
“You see our last game [in Montreal], we’re transitioning into losing some of those habits that haven’t even necessarily come from the past system or anything. It’s habits that we created just being on a losing streak.”
Slowly but surely, they are trying to build new ones back up.
“Give credit to Patrick and his energy coming in,” Clutterbuck said, “and sort of re-instilling the belief and the excitement.”
