The New York Islanders have been a fascinating team to start the season. They came into the campaign as Cup contenders, but are 5-6-2 following their monster road trip to begin the season. Remember that this team still has not played a game at home yet, with their first coming Saturday against Calgary. They only have four games before heading out on the road, too. In fact, the upcoming schedule is not very forgiving: home games against the Flames, Leafs, Rangers, and Penguins before heading on the road again for two more games. This team could get to Game 20 of the season and still be below .500. That is a problem in a division where every team but the Penguins, who are just getting healthy now, have more points than games played.

This has been a headache for fantasy owners. No player on the team has double-digit points and the quartet of Bailey, Palmieri, Parise, and Pageau have three goals combined. The problems continue as Ryan Pulock has run into some injury problems:

#Isles announce D Ryan Pulock out 4-6 weeks with a lower body injury

— Andrew Gross (@AGrossNewsday) November 17, 2021

What is going on this season? Let's dig in.

What stuck out to me looking through HockeyViz was the Islanders' defence at 5-on-5 this year. They are giving up a ton of shots from the top of the circle on the left side:

While that isn't necessarily a dangerous area, it also depends if there are cross-seam passes leading to those shots. That is harder to parse, but it's worth noting they're giving up the sixth-most shot attempts per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 but are middle of the league by expected goals against. They are giving up a lot of shots, but it's nearly a 20% shot increase but just a 10% increase in quality, as measured by expected goals. The reality is that the defence doesn't seem worse, if we look at volume and quality ratios, they're just giving up more shots, and that's just organically leading to more scoring chances.

It is worth noting that the team has added Zdeno Chara in the offseason, a left-shot defenceman. That was the one significant change from last year. It is worth looking at how he's doing this year, and if that can help explain what's going on.

Well, here's how the team is doing defensively with him on the ice:

Hate to say it, but that seems to line up perfectly with what they're giving up overall. While they are still giving up a lot from that left point with him off the ice, it does seem as if he's part of the problem.

Something else hit me: what about Anders Lee? He usually plays a lot of minutes and is a 31-year-old power forward coming off major knee surgery. I stayed at HockeyViz and looked at the environment distiller. In short, I wanted to see if the team was still bad defensively with Lee on the ice on his left wing without Chara on the ice with him. It, uh, is absolutely horrific:

I guess we'll see if it was just the line combinations because he has been moved down in recent contests. But again, a major surgery for an aging power forward is not a small note, and this is a very, very bad start for him defensively.

What should be noted here is that his on-ice expected goals for rate is north of 3.3 as well. There is a lot happening when Lee is on the ice, it's just that it's more bad than good, and the defense is considerably worse than it has ever been.

It does seem the Islanders top line is pressing for more goals, but it's leading to more in the net behind them in return. Lee still seems effective in his net-front role, but if they can't shore up the defensive-zone issues, it won't matter.

Now, to the second line. I had a hypothesis I wanted to test: it was Josh Bailey dragging down most of their lines, making them look worse than they actually are. So, here are the second line's numbers with and without Bailey at 5-on-5 this year, via Natural Stat Trick:

That is, uh, a drastic turn with and without him. The thing is, it's not the same effect on the top line, as it hasn't really mattered who's been there, when talking about shots or expected goals allowed. That leads me to believe that yes, Bailey is struggling, but it's very possible Lee is as well.

That is about where I am with this team. I think they have two top-6 wingers that are having varying levels of bad starts to the season, and they're trying to play with a faster pace overall. I also think Chara isn't quite fitting in yet, though we'll see how that goes.

A team trying to play faster while adding Chara to the blue line and having a (potentially) slowed Lee feels like a recipe for what we're seeing: more goals going back and forth. I don't think it's necessarily a recipe for disaster, though. The coaching staff should have player and fan confidence, it just may be a growing pain for a while.

The big worry for fantasy owners is the goaltending. A team playing at a high pace like the Islanders is just going to allow more shots every game. More shots do mean more saves, but it'll also lead to more goals against. That is not why we drafted the Islanders goalies. We drafted them for sterling goals-against averages, not average ones. If this persists, that is a huge problem for anyone that invested highly in either, or both, goalies.

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We love a rebound story, right? How about John Gibson? He posted a .921 save percentage across six seasons before posting a .904 and .903 his last two years. I still had a lot of belief in Gibson but one fact about fantasy hockey is the goaltending position is tied to the quality of the team, and I thought the Ducks would be bad. Well, at time of writing heading into Wednesday night's games, they're leading the Pacific and he has a .925 save percentage.

I was looking around the HockeyViz site and noticed the team defence actually wasn't bad for Anaheim. They're giving up a fair amount of shots right in tight, but they're keeping the slot clean. As long as Gibson can cut the angles and the defencemen clear out second chances, maybe he can survive like this.

One of the big improvements appears to be on the penalty kill. They give up shots from the wings, but they're keeping the slot completely clean. With no shots coming from the middle, Gibson can focus more on his lateral movement. Fewer decisions always make playing hockey easier.

Call me optimistic here. The West isn't strong, as expected, and after a brief two-game trip coming up, there's a 12-game stretch including Ottawa, Los Angeles, a hobbled Vegas team, Buffalo, Columbus, and Arizona. I think there's a good chance that Gibson keeps up something close to this pace, at least by save percentage, for another six weeks. After that, the team starts Christmas against San Jose and Vancouver, which are easier games. But then Vegas (who'll have at least William Karlsson back by then), Colorado twice, Boston, Toronto, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia from late-December to late-January. That is my recommendation here: try to get another month or so out of Gibson, then look for trade offers as people buy the turnaround more and more.

Of course, he could just have a great year, as he's done a handful of times before, and then we're trading away a potential top-5 goalie on the season. Such are the risks with the position.

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I talk a lot about Best Ball here, and I just checked my teams for the first time in a few weeks. Boy, it hasn't been a good few weeks. It appears that I did three things a lot: drafted Nikita Kucherov and stacked the Vancouver/Florida skill players. That's, uh, not going well.

My two most drafted players were Jared McCann and Timo Meier. That is working out very well in an alternate universe somewhere. Kucherov was my fourth-most drafted player. That isn't working out in any universe.

The Florida Panthers stacks are the things that aren't really coming through. The team is winning a ton of games, yes, but let's be honest about the production from the skill players – it's not great. Barkov is now injured, Huberdeau is under a point-per-game, Bennett is on pace for like 20 assists, and Reinhart is on pace for 15 goals. They aren't struggling mightily or anything, but those aren't league-winning totals. That would belong to anyone that got as much of the top-half of Edmonton's roster as possible, anyone that got the Kuznetsov/Ovechkin stack, or the right combination of some of these guys.

It's still early, of course. But with Barkov and Kucherov injured, and the Canucks looking like a potential lottery team, my best ball rosters are taking a beating and that will continue until morale improves. Anyone out there play best ball this year? How are you doing? Let me know.