Jack Capuano wants to make it clear there is a difference between pushing the pace of a hockey game and being reckless.
“The term that I use with our guys,” he said Friday morning, “is we want to play fast.”
Capuano was behind the Islanders bench last season when he led them to their first postseason appearance since 2007, and his group of young players set the NHL abuzz not just for their franchise revival, but because of the speed with which they played as they stockpiled copious numbers of goals.
But after finishing the regular season seventh in the league in scoring (2.81 goals per game), they went to the postseason and gave them up almost as fast, getting bounced by the top-seeded Penguins in six games.
So that reputation of run-and-gun settled upon them, even if it were far from what they were trying to accomplish.
“We always want to work as a unit of five on the ice and that is in every zone, especially in the defensive zone, that’s where it starts,” Capuano said before his team whipped the Predators, 6-4, at the Coliseum. There are just two more preseason contests — both split-squad games on Sunday in Ottawa and Barrie, Ontario — before the real season starts on Oct. 4 in Newark against the Devils.
“It starts with your breakout,” Capuano said, “it goes into your transition, and then it allows you to play in the offensive zone, and that’s the way we want to work.
“I don’t know [about] run-and-gun because we’re pretty structured the way we want to play, we have the framework we want to play, but we have to be able to get up in the play to create.”
Turns out, getting up in the play is the specialty of young blueliner Matt Donovan, who led all AHL defensemen with points last season while playing for the Islanders’ affiliate in Bridgeport. He showed that acumen by scoring a goal Friday as a result of going hard to the net without the puck and deflecting one in.
So here is Donovan now, still with the team this far along in training camp, with half an arm tucked in an opening-night Islanders sweater.
“What I learned last year was playing defense first, and let the offensive ability take care of itself,” said Donovan, 23, still with a touch of twang from his boyhood home of Edmond, Okla. “I think that’s what they’re looking for me to do here — just play well defensively, and the offense will take care of itself.”
Last year’s captain, Mark Streit, used to be one of the offensive catalysts from the blue line, but he left as a free agent in the offseason for wealthier pastures in Philadelphia.
Although young defenseman Griffin Reinhart may have stood out more in his own zone during this camp, it’s the ability to push the play that Capuano is looking for.
“He’s going to get every opportunity to see what he can do,” Capuano said of Donovan. “So run-and-gun, not necessarily. Just playing fast.”
Forward Kyle Okposo (eye) was cleared and practiced Friday with the AHL/CHL group at IceWorks in Syosset. He is expected to play in one of the games on Sunday, and could possibly be auditioning for the right wing spot on the top line.
Training camp opened with that spot, next to John Tavares and Matt Moulson, belonging to newcomer Pierre-Marc Bouchard. Friday night was the second go-around there for Josh Bailey.