The anger is unstated, but Lane Lambert can feel it.
The Islanders are looking forward, but the future is informed by the pain of last season.
They know they have faded from the national conversation. They want to put themselves back in it.
“I think there’s a sense from the players of having something to prove,” Lambert, the new Islanders coach, said in his first public comments since a short Zoom press conference upon his hiring. “There’s no question about it. But at the same time, you look at it, you can say whatever you want about road games or COVID or this or that. There aren’t any excuses. We can’t make any excuses.”
One day before Islanders prospects report for camp, and eight before they are joined by the rest of the team, Lambert cast the character of an on-message coach, giving little away and projecting confidence. He knows this roster, having been an associate coach on Barry Trotz’s staff for four years prior to his promotion this offseason, and is perfectly fine with the lack of change over the summer.
Besides dealing for defenseman Alexander Romanov at the draft, it’s possible Lambert and his staff will be the only people on the Islanders’ bench in new or different roles to last year on opening night against the Panthers. After a calamitous 84-point season that left the Isles 16 points adrift of the playoffs, Lambert stressed his comfort with that fact.
Everything the Islanders have done for the last six months has pointed toward the organization’s belief in its core, and that last season was an anomaly. It’s getting close to the time to prove themselves right.
“The reason I’m comfortable, and the comfort level is, I know we have good players and good people,” Lambert said. “It’s that simple. There’s a lot of talent, there’s a lot of character. I’m extremely comfortable with what we have.”
This was Lambert’s first offseason as a head coach, an adjustment he said required him to be more involved than he had as an assistant. The differences once training camp starts will be subtle — don’t expect a John Tortorella-esque sea change. Lambert reached out to his players over the summer, and he’s seen them since they got back to Long Island, but took care not to interfere.
The biggest difference might be that, despite a roster where at least 20 names can be written in pen prior to the start of camp, Lambert is viewing everything as a competition. That goes right down to the No. 1 goaltender, a job that Ilya Sorokin seemed to have locked up following a 52-start season and .925 save percentage in 2021-22.
“Those two guys [Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov] are gonna push each other,” Lambert said. “And they cheer for each other, they’re gonna push each other, that healthy competition’s gonna be great. Again, I think that’ll play itself out through training camp in terms of who gets the majority or plays a little bit more.”
As far as the lineup goes, that was more or less the same answer Lambert gave from top to bottom, excepting the fourth line — Matt Martin, Casey Cizikas and Cal Clutterbuck — which seemingly remains a default combination.
“The only thing I can do is define myself through my actions,” Lambert said. “It’s just about being honest and frank. Never letting a player wonder what his position is. As long as everyone knows their role and communication is strong, I think that’s probably gonna be the deciding factor.”
The misery of last season is in the rearview mirror. There is no five-week road trip, no outbreak of illness (fingers crossed) and the chance to prove this team is more like the one that made two straight NHL semifinal rounds than the one that looked like a moment had passed it by.
This being an optimistic time of year, there’s a belief that the Islanders can.
“Without saying it, I think there’s a little bit of that, maybe sense [of anger] in there,” Lambert said. “Certainly like I said, we don’t look at the past. The focus is to look forward and move forward.”
Credit: Source link
