EAST MEADOW, N.Y. — There’s a bit of “nuance” to the style of Anders Lee’s play that makes the difference between a scoring drought and an avalanche of goals as thin as the blades of his skates.
Things are going well for the New York Islanders captain, who has six goals in his last 12 games after scoring just once over the first 15 games of the season. Five of those six, including two third-period tallies that forced overtime in his team’s 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night, have been from the crease of just inches from it.
That’s always been Lee’s M.O.: Get to the front of the net and either clean up the mess, re-direct the puck, or take the goalie’s eyes away — the kind of close-range play that develops in milliseconds.
“It’s just part of the read of playing around the net,” Lee told amNewYork. “You’ve got to understand where the puck is going and where it might come off the path. You’re trying to get a stick on it and trying to get body positioning, trying to get a rebound. All that happens pretty quickly and sometimes, taking the goalie’s eyes away is a better play than positioning yourself for a rebound. There’s a little bit of nuance.”
Sometimes, all it takes is, as Lee described it, “feeling good,” to grease the wheels of production.
“If you’re feeling good, you tend to handle [touches around the net] a little bit better,” Lee said. “They’re not going to all go but you just feel like if they start working in your favor, things start going a little bit. Gotta keep your foot on the gas and keep going after it, but things start to go your way and you definitely feel better.”
It also hasn’t hurt that he was reunited with Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal on the Islanders’ first line on Nov. 28 following a brief hiatus on the third line. The two playmaking forwards have been able to set up ample chances for Lee to capitalize on and with it, the unit has been playing like the top line most expected to see in 2023-24.
With 11 goals scored in 128 minutes of 5-on-5 play prior to Monday’s win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, the trio’s 5.12 goals for per 60 minutes ranked tops on the team and 22nd in the NHL.
“We’re finding our groove,” Lee said. “We think we’re making a difference every night and we should have that expectation and challenge for all of us to make a difference for our team. We take that and we talk a lot and I think we’ve been on the same page and have been really good about growing our game each night.”
