The highlights that show what the Islanders’ new power-play coach can bring to their dismal unit

Ray Bennett was fired by the Avalanche last season after the power play he ran went an abysmal 3-for-22 in a seven-game first-round loss to the Stars, following a regular season in which it converted at 24.79 percent.

That regular-season number is ho-hum for Colorado, which was last below 24 percent during the shortened 2020-21 season, so it didn’t add much to Bennett’s case that his unit had simply done what it always does through 82 games. The Islanders, for whom Bennett is now coaching the power play after being hired as an assistant on Patrick Roy’s bench, would jump for joy at far less than that.

The Islanders converted just 12.56 percent of their power plays last season when the unit was run by John MacLean, ranking 31st in the league, and that is not an anomaly. The Islanders have been above 20 percent just three times since 1994, and last reached 24 percent or above in 1986-87. Indeed, since the 2005 lockout, when the two-line pass was deemed legal, the Islanders cumulatively rank 31st leaguewide on the power play at 17.5 percent.

To put it mildly, there is not a recent history of success here.