By the numbers, the New York Islanders special teams are responsible for the team's relative improvement now (19-22-7) over last year (16-27-7) at the All-Star Break. The 19.5% powerplay ranks 6th overall and the 84.9% penalty kill ranks eighth in the NHL. At 5-on-5 their goals for/against ratio of 0.73 is bottom of the league.

A league-high 10 empty net goals allowed skews the picture slightly, and one possible bright spot is that their shot differential has improved both overall (30.1 shots per game vs. 29.9 allowed) and at 5-on-5 shots per 60 minutes (29.8 for, 29.1 against). Their Fenwick (shots fired +/-) with the score tied or close has them in the middle of the league with a 49.54 percent of possession, though as mentioned last week that's driven by John Tavares line.

As covered in the first-half report card for each player there are signs of improvement, but any season carries a mix of unsustainable or surprise factors that influence the result. A positive sign may be that the areas needing improvement are clear and the roster openings to address them are so apparent they will have to be addressed both from outside and from below.

We'll get to that in the second part of our mid-season roundtable, but here is Part 1, in which our authors share their surprises, disappointments and trade deadline expectations. As always, weigh in with your own.

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The New York Islanders began the second half of 2011-12 in a better place than what they saw at the end of a pretty miserable first quarter. Through the first 21 games the Islanders were 6-11-4, struggling to manage 2.0 goals per game and suffering some poor luck and execution with a 6.9% overall shooting percentage.

As expected, their shooting luck has rebounded -- they're up to 7.9% now -- their goal production has modestly improved to 2.36 per game, and along with that the second quarter offered some belated bright spots. The record in their second 21 games was a more cosmetically pleasing 10-9-2 (including three shootout wins, the kind of coin-flip luck that eluded them in the first quarter), but nowhere near strong enough to undo the damage of October and November. Nonetheless, you might see them headed closer to 20th overall than 30th.

Excluding last night's win (which was game #42, but which completed our second 21-game segment), the Islanders' first half record was 15-20-6. Another informative snapshot is in Torgo's 10-Game Chunks IV FanPost. Below is a rough grade of each of the individuals who contributed.

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The New York Islanders have finally staggered to the NHL's first quarter pole, reaching that mark after all but one of their NHL brethren who have already played 22, 23, even 25 games.

(Granted, 82 games does not divide well into quarters, but what would media coverage and human thought be if it did not force patterns upon life, creating shopping extravaganzas out of family holidays? The line between unseating indigenous people to celebrating with a gluttonous turkey feast to digesting it with a gratuitous HD TV for that one bedroom that is still tragically bare is, well, as American as Mike Modano.)

This point on the calendar, and that shopping holiday, is traditionally when NHL teams re-assess who they are and NHL fans re-asses whether late night Predators at Ducks games would be better seen on 50 inches instead of 46. Which is probably why this morning brings news of the second and third coaching changes of the NHL season.

The Islanders did the coaching change trick last year, so chances are they won't return to that well this soon if they can possibly avoid it. (Believe it or not, Jack Capuano is now only the 10th newest coach in the NHL. [h/t to a reader for pointing out we butchered that tenure factoid earlier.]) But when the coach cannot take the fall (yet), that means taking a hard look at the pieces he was given to deploy -- and the piece he preferred not to. Here's a rundown of the disappointment, and some of the luck and inherent failings that may be behind them.

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Ten games is too early for report cards but not too early for general temperature checks. With the Islanders at 3-5-1 and struggling for goals -- last night's shutout dropped them to the bottom of the league at 1.8 GF/GP -- this is a quick look at who's tending upward and who's trending downward since before the preseason.

Some are obvious, some not so much, some probably sound crazy. As always, offer your own in comments.

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Teams go though scoring slumps throughout the season. Last year during the Islanders 14-game winless streak they managed to score only 13 even strength goals.Despite the struggles during the streak, in the other 68 games of the season the Isles managed to score 137 even strength goals. 

So to question the capabilities of the Islanders offense only nine games into the season may be a bit premature. But if you take away the 5-1 victory over the Lightning, the Islanders have scored a paltry six even strength goals in eight games this season. 

And while it is easy to blame the usual suspects for the offensive woes (or should I say, the third line), all of the lines have struggled to score at even strength in those eight games.The first line has only scored two even strength goals in that time. The second line has scored only three, and the third line has put up a big, fat zero goals at even strength.

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When you're trying to accumulate statistics and share them with the masses, you try and get the numbers as accurate as possible. I'll let you in on a little secret: when I record each scoring chance, I only need to record the who, when, where, and how about the shot. I don't need to record the players on the ice.

Timeonice.com, the same guys who deliver us our Corsi stats, takes care of that for me. When I'm done recording all of the scoring chances and formulate all of the tables, I always double check them just in case. Well as I was on my chexpedition, I noticed something very peculiar.

It was in the second period and after a Steve Sullivan scoring chance I noticed that the forward line on the ice was Kyle Okposo, Michael Grabner, and...P.A. Parenteau?  So I went back to the tape and sure enough they were all on the ice.  That was when the Islanders got called for Too Many Men on the Ice.

Usually when that call is made it's because of a bad change and a player coming off the bench plays the puck before the other player can get off the ice. In this circumstance Parenteau was just a little too overzealous to play and hopped on the ice with the FnGO line.

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It's hard to be positive for any professional sports fan who sits through a full game of watching their team fail to get on the board. The possibility of encouragement has to sink even further when that shutout is the third of three straight losses. But if I were an Islanders fan (oh wait, I am) I would be encouraged going in to Thursday's rematch against the Pittsburgh Penguins. 

Yes, the Islanders got shutout. Sure, many of our ears are bleeding after having to sit through 60 minutes of Paul Steigerwald and Bob Errey's "commentary." But the effort put forth by the Isles was much better than what we saw on the Florida trip. The execution by the team was better. And finally, even though we put up a goose egg on the scoreboard, the scoring chance differential was better.

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P.A. Parenteau went three years and four minor-league teams in between NHL games. He finally got another "shot" of sorts with the Rangers, but it was all of 22 games and it didn't take. (Thank goodness for their penchant for always buying the brand name: They signed Alex Frolov, which worked out great.)

All Parenteau did in that long minor-league interim was put up over a point per game in the AHL for Portland, Norfolk and Hartford. That he was able to translate that into a 53-point season in the NHL at age 27 shouldn't be a surprise, but I confess being taken off guard by the achievement. I wasn't even certain he'd make the 2010-11 team, much less eventually carve a permanent place on the top line after Jack Capuano took over. The performance saved him from trying his hand in Europe and earned him a one-year extension (including a raise, to $1.25 million) in February.

He also, it must be said, gave us juvenile adults a much-needed laugh at the end of a frustrating night against the Hurricanes.

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