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Happy Halloween, Islanders Country.
The Isles showed up late to the game — all of them. Mathew Barzal was just the only one who got caught. The star center missed the team bus, showed up late to the rink, and by the time the puck dropped in Carolina, it looked like the rest of the group never made it, either. Three goals in the first period, 20 minutes of Canes chaos, and one long night that began long before the opening faceoff.
Barzal was a healthy scratch — team discipline, the club said. Is he a repeat offender, or is Mathieu Darche simply building a culture of accountability on his own terms? Maybe it’s both. “It’s not a big deal here. It happens. We know that,” Patrick Roy said. “No one here is mad at Barzy. It’s just the culture we put in place. We’re a team. We stick together. Compassion is a very important thing.”
Calum Ritchie was supposed to fill the lineup hole, but even that went sideways. Flights were canceled. The replacement never arrived. It was a night of Planes, Canes, and Team Buses — and to add to the absurdity, even Carolina’s goaltender was named Bussi. You couldn’t script it stranger.
Matthew Schaefer scored his third goal of the season on the power play and continues to be worth the price of admission or an ESPN+ subscription. He also had his welcome to the NHL moment as Andrei Svechnikov blew past him for a goal 11 seconds after Simon Holmstrom made it a 4-2 game.
The Islanders have hit a familiar rut after grabbing nine points in their first 10 games, a rhythm that felt sustainable until it wasn’t. They’ve been chasing the same issues all week — shoddy defense, sudden lapses, questionable goaltending — and this time it cost them before the first intermission.
The schedule offers no favors. Tonight, it’s their first back-to-back of the season, heading straight into Washington. A lesson in accountability doesn’t have to last long to leave a mark. The message from Darche was clear: show up on time, in every way. The next test comes in less than 24 hours.
Game Recap
The Islanders dropped their third straight game, falling 6-2 to the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night at PNC Arena. Rookie defenseman Matthew Schaefer and winger Simon Holmstrom provided the goals, while David Rittich made 27 saves in net.
The Islanders were without Mathew Barzal, who was scratched by head coach Patrick Roy as a disciplinary measure for being late to the rink. Despite the lineup shake-up, New York showed flashes of fight but couldn’t overcome Carolina’s fast start.
The Hurricanes built a 3-0 lead midway through the opening period on goals from Bradly Nadeau, Mike Reilly (short-handed), and Jordan Martinook. Schaefer cut into the deficit late in the first with a power-play tally — his third of the season — blasting a shot through traffic to make it 3-1.
Carolina extended the lead early in the third when Jackson Blake scored from the slot, but Holmstrom responded at 10:48 to make it 4-2, finishing off a strong forecheck from Jean-Gabriel Pageau. Just seconds later, Andrei Svechnikov restored the three-goal cushion before Logan Stankoven sealed the result in the final seconds.
GameScore Impact Card
⏭ NEXT UP: The Islanders are back on the ice in DC tonight as they take on Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals. Face-off is at 7:00 PM EDT.
📊 STANDINGS
The Late Show
The Islanders sent a clear message Thursday morning — no one is above the team standard. Head coach Patrick Roy announced that Mathew Barzal, the team’s star forward and offensive catalyst, would be a healthy scratch for the game against the Carolina Hurricanes after arriving late to the rink. The move, rare in today’s NHL for a player of Barzal’s stature, underscored the accountability-first culture Roy has been intent on reinforcing since his arrival behind the bench.
“That’s the culture of our team,” Roy said. “We made the decision not to play him tonight. Barzy’s not happy — he doesn’t feel good about it. He respects the decision; he understands it. He was really good about it.” Roy noted that discipline of this nature isn’t new to him personally, recalling a similar instance from his playing days. “It happened to me when I was in Colorado,” he said. “Different way, but I missed a practice and missed two games. That’s the culture of our team. We believe in it.”
CANCELLED!
The Isles planned to make a roster move on Thursday, but Calum Ritchie’s highly anticipated NHL debut will have to wait at least one more day. Ritchie’s flight from Bridgeport to Raleigh was canceled due to inclement weather, preventing the 19-year-old forward from joining the team in time for puck drop against the Hurricanes. Despite the delay, there’s optimism that he could be available for Friday night’s matchup against the Washington Capitals.
Back Rome
Earlier in the afternoon, the Islanders announced they had activated defenseman Alexander Romanov from injured reserve. Romanov had missed five games with an upper-body injury but was cleared for a return to the lineup just before the team departed for Carolina. He skated 19:40 TOI in his retur and layed a hip check on Nikolaj Ehlers in the second period.
📚 SOUND SMART: Per Eric Hornick in The Skinny, Matthew Schaefer’s three goals match the most goals by an 18-year-old defenseman in a calendar month in the last 40 years (Rasmus Dahlin, Aaron Ekblad, and Zach Bogosian -3x have also done it.) Schaefer was credited with a burst of 22.93 mph – that is the fastest speed burst ever recorded by an Isles defenseman (tracked since 2021-22; Ryan Pulock had the previous record at 22.84 mph); it was his 4th burst of at least 22 mph this season, just one below the combined total of all Isles D last season.
🎥 ISLES REWIND: On October 31, 1987, the Islanders scored the first eight goals in an 8-2 thrashing of the New York Rangers at the Nassau Coliseum. Mikko Makela scored twice on his way to a 36-goal season with five other Islanders, including rookie Derek King, who registered his first NHL goal at 15:55 of the second period to make it 6-0.
However, the game’s headline was the great Marcel Dionne, who finished his Hall-of-Fame career with the Rangers. Dionne recorded his 700th NHL goal at 19:27 of the third period, beating Kelly Hrudey from a sharp angle.
📺 sles House Episode #37 | New York Islanders | Barzzzzal “Another week, another Isles House Podcast Episode. This time Ethan, Rocco, and Jack recap a tough stretch, as suddenly the New York Islanders have lost three straight games. Mathew Barzal missing the bus, Ilya Sorokin struggling, and ultimately recapping a tough week in NYI land. Can they finish the month strong in DC tomorrow night
🔗 Mike Reilly wanted a reunion with the Islanders but says the team wasn’t interested by Andrew Gross, Newsday “Mike Reilly was very interested in returning to the Islanders, even after being a frequent healthy scratch once he returned from a heart issue that sidelined him for a significant portion of last season. That interest was not reciprocated. So the veteran depth defenseman moved on to the Hurricanes on a one-year, $1.1 million deal as an unrestricted free agent. He faced one of his six former teams for the first time since leaving at Lenovo Center on Thursday night.”
🔗 Islanders punish Mat Barzal for being late by scratching him vs. Hurricanes by Ethan Sears, New YorkPost “The Islanders laid down a gauntlet on Thursday morning, making Mat Barzal a healthy scratch against the Hurricanes as punishment for being late to the rink. “That’s the culture of our team,” coach Patrick Roy said. “And we made the decision not to play him tonight. And Barzy’s not happy, he doesn’t feel good about it. He respects the decision, he understands it. He was really good about it.”
And we leave you with this… the Islanders “Wolf of Wall Street” Islanders sweater makes a return cameo in Mr. Scorsese, a five-part documentary series on Apple TV
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