Andrew Gross: Islanders' power play looks better, and it has to be
Islanders defenseman Matthew Schaefer plays against the Rangers during a preseason hockey game at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. Credit: Ed Murray
Pete DeBoer has made the point repeatedly during training camp: It doesn’t matter how good the Islanders’ defensive structure is, the team cannot return to the playoffs without an increase in goal production.
That being the case, it doesn’t take an NHL coach to complete the thought: The Islanders’ perennially struggling power play must be less awful.
We’re not demanding a top-10 finish, something the Islanders have accomplished just once in the last decade. With assistant coach Rocky Thompson entering his first season running the power play, just finishing in the top half of the 32-team league would represent a radical improvement.
“Honestly, I think we have the right guys,” Matthew Schaefer, who quarterbacks the top power-play unit, told Newsday on Thursday. “We’ve all got a lot of skills. We’ve all got good hockey IQ. Rocky’s been awesome, helping us out with all these things. We just have a little bit of a different way to look at it from Rocky’s perspective. We can always get better no matter what.”
The Islanders ranked 30th on the power play last season at 16.5% (40-for-242), a huge factor in the team languishing 24th in the league in goals scored. It marked the third time in four seasons the Islanders finished either 30th or 31st in the 32-team NHL on the man advantage.
The Islanders devoted half of their practice time on Thursday at Northwell Health Ice Center in East Meadow to the power play as they prepare to conclude their four-game preseason with matches against the Rangers and Devils at UBS Arena on Friday and Saturday nights, respectively.
It’s an impossibly small sample size, but in Tuesday’s 4-3 win over the Rangers at Madison Square Garden — the first time DeBoer dressed personnel similar to the expected opening-night lineup in Toronto on Wednesday — the Islanders went 3-for-5 on the power play with newcomer Matias Maccelli scoring twice and Schaefer adding a goal and two assists.
More importantly, the entries looked cleaner and faster than last season. The Islanders had more time to set up in the offensive zone rather than fumbling around with the puck through the neutral zone and at the blue line.
“I think speed,” captain Bo Horvat told Newsday when asked what needs to be better this season and what worked well on Tuesday. “I think coming in with a lot more speed and putting more pressure on those hard stands that teams like to do at the blue line. And Schaef being able to get past that F1 (forward) and give us that gapping that allows us to have that speed.”
Schaefer worked with Maccelli, Horvat, Brayden Schenn and Kyle Palmieri on the first unit on Thursday while Tony DeAngelo quarterbacked Emil Heineman, Cal Ritchie, Simon Holmstrom and Anthony Duclair at the other end of the ice. It’s fair to assume these will be the units facing the Maple Leafs on Wednesday.
Palmieri and Duclair provided the net-front presence for their units. Horvat and Ritchie were in the bumper (between the circles). Maccelli and Heineman were on the left halfwalls and Schenn and Holmstrom on the right side.
But to coax more goals out of the power play, the whole point is that the units should be about movement, not rigid positions on the ice. The five-man units did show more rotation, both in Tuesday’s game and Thursday’s practice, than was the norm last season.
Consider each preseason game, each practice, a building block.
“We’re trying to lay a good foundation to all our systems, power play included,” DeBoer said. “So when Mathew Barzal is out, you can still have success. When things get cold, as they will inevitably, you can have something to fall back on and rely on and guys can look quickly for answers.”
Maccelli, signed after the Maple Leafs failed to tender him a qualifying offer as a restricted free agent, is the X factor while Barzal (left knee) is sidelined. Maccelli can transport the puck with speed — as Barzal does — but he’s also quick with his shot down low and on the angles.
“The more you practice it, the more things become instinctual,” Horvat said. “Having the guys out there and working through it together more regularly, guys start to figure each other out a little bit more. With Maccelli out there it’s a different look than with Barzy so we’re just kind of figuring him out.”
There are many things the Islanders have to figure out — and quickly — to reach the postseason for the first time since 2024 and win a round for the first time since 2021. The power play is chief among them.
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.
