Trotz admits overcoaching Islanders

New York Islanders head coach Barry Trotz has some regrets about how he handled his club before the NHL paused the season.

"Twenty-twenty hindsight is always a great thing, but I would do a few things different," he told Newsday's Andrew Gross. "Maybe practiced, at different times, more, just because the group needed it.

"Sometimes, I felt like we overcoached," Trotz added. "That's because we're so passionate about getting better. When I say you overcoach, you get away from what you do really well."

The Islanders were one of the NHL's best teams early in the season, going a franchise-record 17 straight games without a regulation loss from mid-October to late November. However, they cooled off down the stretch.

New York won only two of its final 13 games before the postponement, falling out of a playoff position. The club currently sits one point behind the Carolina Hurricanes and Columbus Blue Jackets for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, albeit with two games in hand on Columbus.

Despite that slide, Trotz still believes the team would have made the postseason, or will, if and when play resumes.

"I wasn't worried we weren't going to make the playoffs because we were trending, mentally, in the right way," he said. "Our mental mindset was going in the right direction."

Trotz is in his second campaign with the Islanders after helping the Washington Capitals win the Stanley Cup in 2018. He led New York into the postseason in 2018-19. That year, the Islanders swept the Pittsburgh Penguins in the opening round before getting swept by the Hurricanes in Round 2.

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