The secret to the Islanders’ dominating season revealed

Here's a question Islanders coach Jack Capuano has been getting a lot lately — and he seems to be getting tired of repeating his answer.

Coach, the team's position now would not have been guessed by many at the start of the season. What's been the secret?

"Well, A) I would agree with you," Capuano said after the team's 7-4 win over the Flyers on Monday afternoon, the game that put them into first place in the Metropolitan Division heading into the week-long All-Star break. "I would agree that there are a lot of people in this room that obviously didn't pick us to be here.

"But the thing about our hockey club," he continued, now getting into his scripted diatribe, "it's believability, trust, accountability, and leadership. I've said that since Day 1. No one gave us a chance, and that's why you play the games."

So there is no question that the us-against-the-world template is being dragged out here, even if it's not entirely true. When general manager Garth Snow traded for defensemen Johnny Boychuk and Nick Leddy just four days before the start of the season, almost all around the league applauded the moves and immediately inserted the Islanders into the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

Yet to be at 31-14-1 and in first place 46 games into the season? To be four points ahead of the Penguins (who have on game in hand)? And to be five points ahead of the defending Eastern Conference champions and blood rival, the Rangers — who just so happened to win 16 of 19 before the break, yet still hold two games in hand.

"I'm very pleased up until this point with our hockey club," Capuano said. "We've done a lot of good things, not only winning hockey games, but how we're winning games and how we're playing within the structure and the framework that we talk about every day."

Islanders coach Jack CapuanoPhoto: Paul J. Bereswill

The thing is Capuano isn't holding some secret motivational tool (as much as he often sounds like an excerpt from Rhonda Byrne or Tony Robbins). Instead, the motivation has come simply from piling up wins, which has come from the addition of new players who are playing well and have added depth.

Sometimes, it's really as simple as getting better players.

Which is what will happen when forward Mikhail Grabovski and defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky return after this break. Both fully practiced with the team in their final pre-break practice on Tuesday. They both likely are to be ready when the schedule resumes next Tuesday, when the Rangers come in for the first of three remaining matches between the teams at the Coliseum before that old barn calls it quits on its final regular season.

Questions do remain, such as: When will Grabovski start giving a return on his $5 million cap hit? Will Griffin Reinhart be ready to come up later in the season and solidify a defensive corps that is shaky below its top four? Can goalie Jaroslav Halak keep up his blistering start?

But those are questions for the future, projecting how they will fare against harder, more physical and more intense competition. For now, it's a team trying not to get too high off a good start.

"I don't even know our record right now," Capuano said. "We talk to our players and coaching staff about coming to the rink to get better every day. I know we won some games, things are going well for our team right now. But we can't lose sight of the way we need to play.

"And when we play the way we're supposed to, it gives us a chance to have success."

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