How Barry Trotz’s system has turned around the Islanders

Barry Trotz running the Islanders benchBarry Trotz was talking about the identity the Islanders had established under his watch in his first year behind the bench. Beyond the “Tough to play against” tag and “five-man structure,” the coach talked about how his team has “to go with a four-line mentality because we’re not loaded with top-end talent.”

Matt Barzal and perhaps Anders Lee aside, there is truth in that statement. But what makes it so intriguing is that Trotz had the ultimate top-end talent in his last gig in Washington with Alex Ovechkin. Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov weren’t too shabby, either.

The coach believed in five-man structure there, too, but Trotz rode his horses…