When Barry Trotz was coaching the Washington Capitals, he saw Chandler Stephenson as a player who didn’t understand how good he could be.

Stephenson, who made his NHL debut in 2015 — Trotz’s second year in Washington — was a player the coach thought could eventually be a top-six player. But he played with self-imposed limitations.

“I call it, they have governors on them,” Trotz said.

Stephenson, now with the Vegas Golden Knights, is indeed a top-six player. He already has 20 assists this year entering play Friday, one off his career-high, and is on pace to blast past the 14 goals he scored last season, too. Trotz will see him on Sunday, when the Golden Knights play the Islanders, but that’s not why he was discussing Stephenson prior to Thursday’s win over the Bruins.

He was talking about Stephenson because he was asked about Anthony Beauvillier. And the 24-year old Beauvillier reminds Trotz of a younger Stephenson.

“You watch [Stephenson] play now, there’s no governor,” Trotz said. “And he realizes it. He’s got himself to the next level. And he’s a good player. Beau is like that.”

Trotz has tried to impress a message on Beauvillier over the past week, first sitting him in a win over the Devils last Saturday and publicly calling out his lack of defensive effort that helped lead to a Nashville goal in the prior game on Dec. 9. Beauvillier responded in kind.

Upon his return to the lineup in Detroit on Tuesday, Beauvillier’s effort was evident. He backchecked to break up an odd-man rush in the first period, a clear shift in the effort Trotz talked about. On Thursday against the Bruins, he powered a slap shot past Linus Ullmark for his first goal since Oct. 30, a span of 16 games. It was also his first point since Nov. 4, a 15-game period.

“I’ve been kind of grinding to find my game lately,” Beauvillier said following the 3-1 win on Thursday. “But the last two games have been good. Definitely a wake-up call.”

He declined to go into detail on what Trotz has said to him, but it’s not hard to read between the lines.

The Islanders, plainly, need more production out of their wingers. Beauvillier, Josh Bailey, Kyle Palmieri and Zach Parise — who started on the second and third lines against the Bruins — have combined for three goals since the calendar flipped to November.

To be fair, Bailey missed time in COVID-19 protocol. And Palmieri suffered a lower-body injury on Thursday, missing the third period with Trotz describing his status as day-to-day.

But that sort of output is not good enough for any team, let alone one with aspirations as high as the Islanders had coming into this season. Those aspirations have been dented with the team sitting at 8-12-5. But that doesn’t change their expectation to win every game they play.

Trotz chose to single out Beauvillier this week. Perhaps it’s getting some results.

“There’s another level to him that maybe he doesn’t even see yet,” Trotz said. “We see it, but he needs to see it. And I think sometimes you need some of these hard lessons on the way to understand it.”

Beauvillier described the message as “hard to hear” but recognized that it came in pursuit of a bigger goal.

“I’m trying to see the positive of it now,” he said. “And obviously I’m happy with my last two games and trying to move forward.”