On a nightly basis, the New York Islanders are in a fight for their playoff lives. And head coach Jack Capuano doesn't like the response he's seeing from many of the team's secondary pieces.
In fact, Capuano seems to think that any player not named John Tavares or Kyle Okposo needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask themselves whether they think they have their 's--t' together.
Because from Capuano's vantage, it seems none of them do. Not Ryan Strome. Not Brock Nelson. Not Josh Bailey.
Not a one.
"There's no surprises. We need Strome to be better. We need Brock to be better. We need Bailey to be better. We need guys to be better if we're going to have any chance at all," Capuano said. "They see it, it's black and white. The video doesn't lie. It doesn't come down to X's and O's, it doesn't come down to systems. It comes down to how hard you want to compete.
"We've struggled with a few guys, for sure, about their compete level and their work ethic. It has to be better. There's no doubt that those guys they have to figure out at some point...The guys mentioned need to pick their pick their s-t up and start playing."
Guys like Bailey and Strome especially don't have much of an excuse. As former first-round picks playing alongside Tavares, the Isles captain, they should be producing at a rate much steadier and more impactful than they have been.
Instead, Strome has just 8 markers and 26 points through 66 games this season, well down from his 50 point total in 2014-15, and Bailey has just 12 goals and 32 points. Both players have seen and continue to see top-six minutes and yet fail to produce.
It could be a question of deployment and, in turn, an issue with Capuano and the Islanders coaching staff, but with Bailey and Strome failing to excel even when placed on the top unit alongside Tavares, there's really nowhere for the finger of blame to point than directly at the players in question.
Of course, that's likely little solace to Capuano, who, at this point, is just hoping that he can piece together a lineup good enough over the next five games to secure one of the East's two wild card spots. At the moment, the Isles hold sole possession of the first wild card spot, but the Flyers (91 points) and Bruins (90 points) are breathing down their neck.
With five games remaining, the most of any of the teams currently vying for one of the eight Eastern playoff spots, the Islanders are in as good a position as possible to lock up a postseason berth.
But it's going to take guys like Bailey, Strome and Brock Nelson - 25 goals, which is second on the team to Tavares, but only five in the last 28 games - waking up and stepping up if it's going to happen.
The most troubling part of all this though, may not even be the potential for the Islanders to miss the playoffs this year - it's the question of what they do long-term with guys like Strome and Bailey who should be hitting their strides as NHLers, but instead seem to be stuck in neutral.
