“There’s going to be change. … One of the easiest things to correct, if there’s a commitment and a buy-in, is keeping the puck out of your net.” Barry Trotz, August 2018



Just call him Barry the Prophet.



Trotz spoke those words just months after accepting the Islanders head coaching job and assuming the task of making the NHL’s worst defense (league-leading 293 goals against in 2017-18) respectable again. The 56-year-old offered no timeline, just the message that he was there to implement change.



If there was a man to begin to steer the ship in the right direction, Trotz seemed like a worthy candidate. He tightened the defensive bolts on the 2018 Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals, which seemed to be the final missing piece to one of the NHL’s best teams over the past decade.



Still, given how bad the Islanders were defensively a season ago and that they were returning virtually the same...