It did not take long for Andrew Ladd to find out what it’s like to stroll into New York on a big contract and underperform.
The Islanders signed the free-agent forward to a seven-year, $38.5 million deal this summer, the annual salary-cap hit of $5.5 million being carried in hopes of filling the void left by the departures of integral pieces Kyle Okposo, Frans Nielsen and Matt Martin, forwards who signed elsewhere.
Then Ladd scored just two goals in his first 24 games — a stat he was able to rattle off without prompting Monday morning. The team was far out of the playoff picture, and by Jan. 17, head coach Jack Capuano was fired.
“The easy thing is to come in and everything to be seamless and hit the ground running,” Ladd told The Post before Monday night’s game against the Predators at Barclays Center, a contest — just like the rest of the remaining schedule — that held the Islanders’ postseason hopes in the balance.
“But I think in everything you do, there is adversity at different times,” Ladd said, “and you deal with it as it comes.”
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Yet, as Ladd has turned his season around, so have the Islanders. Interim head coach Doug Weight had them on the edge of the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, and Ladd scoring 11 goals in his previous 28 games has a lot to do with that.
“Unless you’ve walked in those shoes, it’s a tough thing,” said Weight, who played for six different teams during his 19-year NHL career. “It’s a tough thing to come in and the team lost a piece of their identity, which happens in this era. A couple new guys come in, and he gets a contract and he’s been a leader and a voice in one place for a long time, and he’s had success.
“So what you want is to have that show right away and you want to get off on a hot start and fit right in. It just doesn’t work like that. It’s hard. That’s why people fear change. It’s a challenge.”
The difference in Ladd’s game has been astounding, with confidence showing in almost every facet and the goals just a byproduct of better all-around play. As Weight was quick to point out, the 6-foot-3, 200-pounder has been more physical — but he knows that he can’t get carried away.
“Sensing late in games or in periods that our team needs a lift, he’ll go run around a little bit and bring that physical play,” Weight said. “He’s a tall guy, but he’s not a huge guy. But he knows how to hit. So you can’t go beat yourself up and get 16 hits every night. But he picks his spots well and plays a physical game.”
When thinking about his own game and how it turned around, Ladd pointed to a couple things, first being the simple fact of just shooting the puck more.
“My mentality just went to, ‘All right, I’m just going to shoot it,’ ” Ladd said. “Maybe turning into more of a threat when I am shooting it and narrowing my focus and simplifying my game a little bit. I think it’s confidence.”
It has also helped that he’s healthy, having dealt with an upper-body injury that kept him out of four games in mid-January, just as Weight was taking over. It was also midway through the season that his young family finally settled down, with his kids getting situated at new schools and his wife acclimating herself to the area following spending most of the past five years in Winnipeg.
“My body is feeling better the second half, and that’s probably a combination of lots of different things, comfort level of being here and everyone in the family being settled,” Ladd said. “There’s probably lots that go into it.”
Fact is, the Islanders need production underneath the top line centered by star John Tavares if they want to make this playoff push. It might have taken awhile, but Ladd is finally making that happen.
Or, as Weight so succinctly put it: “He’s just been better.”