{"id":118524,"date":"2019-03-07T06:35:19","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T03:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ww-vb.mine.nu\/w108\/barry-trotz-wants-islanders-to-step-up-commitment-level\/"},"modified":"2019-03-07T06:35:19","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T03:35:19","slug":"barry-trotz-wants-islanders-to-step-up-commitment-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/barry-trotz-wants-islanders-to-step-up-commitment-level\/","title":{"rendered":"Barry Trotz wants Islanders to step up &#8216;commitment&#8217; level"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>OTTAWA, Ontario \u2014 Barry Trotz didn\u2019t want to go so far as to call his team complacent, but the Islanders coach sure wasn\u2019t far off. What he issued was a clear-eyed, candid assessment of his squad, which has just been able to stave off collapse over the past two-plus weeks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo me, when you\u2019re really sharp, it\u2019s not necessarily your legs, it\u2019s [mental],\u201d Trotz said after his team blew a pair of two-goal leads before winning a 5-4 game in a shootout against the last-overall Senators at the Coliseum on Tuesday night. <\/p>\n<p>Following a travel day on Wednesday, the Isles are set to finish up this home-and-home Thursday night \u2014 their sixth game in 10 nights, having gone 3-4-1 over their past eight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA couple guys, it\u2019s just a grind,\u201d Trotz said. \u201cBut they have to be a little more focused, [show] a little more commitment. It\u2019s all those things, just being a pro.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The sense of commitment has been the Islanders\u2019 biggest strength during this surprising season of success. They are one of the best recent examples of how the sum is greater than the parts.<\/p>\n<p>They don\u2019t have enough of the raw, top-end talent to win games when they don\u2019t play well. When mistakes were made in the past, they were cleaned up by great team defense or great goaltending. The fact netminder Robin Lehner didn\u2019t make the trip after taking a shot to the head when he was run over by Brady Tkachuk on Tuesday, and Thomas Greiss might have to carry the load by himself for at least a little while, is hardly ideal going forward.<\/p>\n<p>But, what Trotz said after the club\u2019s inaction at the Feb. 25 trade deadline is worth repeating: \u201cThe strength of our group is the group.\u201d Now the members of that group need to show their signature gumption and pull themselves out of this rut.<br \/><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Video\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zRVsNK8i6kE?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\"><\/iframe><\/span><br \/>\u201cWe\u2019re just off a little bit,\u201d Trotz said. \u201cI\u2019d like to say it\u2019s everybody, but there are certain individual players that I have to get to right now. It\u2019s been a little bit problematic lately, because one game it\u2019s these three guys, next game it\u2019s these five guys, whatever. You go through that. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou just have to make sure our focus and our detail [are there]. We\u2019ll see if we\u2019re healthier and we\u2019ll see about our lineup.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So that\u2019s part of it, too. There has been a stomach bug going around the locker room, which a couple guys have played through. And there is the emotional impact of this past Thursday, when former captain John Tavares returned to the Coliseum wearing the Maple Leafs sweater for one of the more memorable nights in recent franchise history. <\/p>\n<p>But what remains in front of the Islanders is a fate that is in their own hands. They can go back to playing the way they were for most of the first five months of the season and continue to battle the Capitals \u2014 or whomever else \u2014 for first place in the Metropolitan Division. They can continue dragging along in this malaise and slink into the postseason, which would surely then be a short-lived run. Or they could fold up the tent all together and suffer a cataclysmic collapse to miss the playoffs \u2014 they are just four points clear of Montreal in the second wild-card spot and six points clear of the Blue Jackets, the first team out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThings haven\u2019t been coming easy,\u201d captain Anders Lee said, \u201cand we\u2019ve been a little tight of late.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nThat was reiterated by Trotz when he brought up the strange scenario of the back-to-back opponent \u2014 Ottawa just fired coach Guy Boucher, traded away its top three scorers and is a franchise immersed in general chaos from the top down. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re playing free, and there is a little more anxiety for us to win games right now,\u201d Trotz said. \u201cThat is a different feel, when you\u2019re expected to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There were very low expectations for these Islanders when the season started, but that has changed. Now, leaving after their five-game homestand, it\u2019s time to see how they react under a different kind of pressure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019ll probably do us some good to go on the road,\u201d Trotz said. \u201cI love [the Coliseum], but it\u2019s probably time for us to regroup, and sometimes you regroup on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2019\/03\/06\/barry-trotz-wants-islanders-to-step-up-commitment-level\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] OTTAWA, Ontario \u2014 Barry Trotz didn\u2019t want to go so far as to call his team complacent, but the Islanders coach sure wasn\u2019t far off. What he issued was a clear-eyed, candid assessment of his squad, which has just been able to stave off collapse over the past two-plus weeks. \u201cTo me, when you\u2019re &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":118525,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tie-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}