NEW YORK — The Islanders special teams units got plenty of work on Thursday night in their 2-0 win over the New Jersey Devils at Barclays Center.
A pair of power-play goals in the first and third period led the Isles to the preseason win. Kieffer Bellows scored the game’s opening goal at 19:19 of the first period off a pass from Tanner Fritz.
Anders Lee put the Islanders ahead by two with a goal on the man-advantage at 12:21 of the third.
[lawrence-related id=844453]Isles Insights
1. The Islanders power play unit was busy on Thursday. They had eight power-play opportunities during the course of the exhibition game and converted twice. The game never had much flow during five-on-five action and out of the gate, there were a combined 16 minutes of penalties in the first period alone.
The Islanders finished the game with 12 penalty minutes, while the Devils had a whopping 30 minutes in penalties.
2. The extended power play and penalty kill time was certainly a plus for a team still acclimating to new head coach Barry Trotz. The Islanders new bench boss is still in the process of getting his new team up to speed with how he likes his special teams units to operate.
“There’s a couple of new concepts and terminologies,” Trotz said after the game. “When you introduce some concepts, and they’re not foreign concepts they’re just concepts that we believe in and know that they work. When you don’t have success sometimes you doubt it a little bit and you’re not as assertive. You have some success and you sort of go, ‘I got it. I know he’s got my back. When I’m here this guy has to be there.’
“There’s that trust factor of what you’re doing and you stay the process… You just have to believe in what you’re doing and I’m glad we’re having a little bit of success with those units right now. They’re believing in it and more than anything they’re committed.”
[protected-iframe id=”cee3ea316206c29e9379fa96ec6b9a16-142507471-9559664″ info=”https://www.nhl.com/video/embed/lee-doubles-the-islanders-lead/t-277350912/c-61195703?autostart=false” width=”540″ height=”315″]3. “It’s definitely a mentality. It’s the way we approach things. It ‘s the way we handle things. It’s how we play and I think you can see it. It’s still preseason, so there’s going to be sloppy things here or there and it’s not going to look pretty at times, but it’s a work in progress and that’s what preseason is about. Since we’ve gotten into camp we’ve learned a lot, we’ve been challenged a lot and it’s definitely a different feel.” — Anders Lee describing the changes surrounding the Islanders special teams.
4. The Islanders were outshot 36-27 in the win, so both starter Thomas Greiss and backup Christopher Gibson saw the puck a few times during the course of the night. Obviously, neither one surrendered a goal to the visiting Devils.
Greiss played the first two periods of the game and made 25 saves, while Gibson played the final period and had 11 saves.
5. Speaking of Greiss, the Islanders netminder has been working to try and bounce back after a lackluster 2017-18 campaign. Greiss finished the year with a .892 save percentage and a 3.82 goals against average.
But Trotz has liked what he saw from Greiss, who is in the middle of a three-year, $10 million contract, through the first few weeks of training camp. Greiss looked comfortable during his 40 minutes of work on Thursday night against the Devils.
“I’ve been encouraged with Thomas the whole training camp,” Trotz said.
6. Official attendance for Thursday’s preseason tilt was 4,722.
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