SUNRISE, Fla. — The Islanders don’t but know — or aren’t but saying — how critical the accidents suffered by Mathew Barzal and Scott Mayfield on Saturday night time are.
However neither participant was within the lineup for Sunday’s 6-3 defeat to the Panthers, and all of the Islanders can do now’s wait and hope that neither participant joins an inventory of longer-term accidents that already contains Noah Dobson, Ryan Pulock, Marcus Hogberg and Semyon Varlamov.
None of these 4 are anticipated again earlier than the 4 Nations break.
Lou Lamoriello mentioned Saturday that Dobson and Pulock would start skating in the course of the two-week layoff, with Hogberg anticipated to return on roughly a four-week timetable and Varlamov out indefinitely.
The organizational line concerning Barzal and Mayfield was that they are going to know extra on Monday.
Although, with the Islanders unlikely to observe following a back-to-back with journey residence, it appears unlikely that extra info can be forthcoming that quickly.
“You realize what, accidents, it’s sadly a part of the sport,” coach Patrick Roy mentioned earlier than the sport as a crew spokesman repeated that they might know extra tomorrow. “I bear in mind once I was in Colorado, after we misplaced [Peter] Forsberg in that sequence in opposition to L.A. [in 2001], it was a second for different guys to take the lead. It’s the identical factor proper now.”
The Islanders got here into Sunday driving a seven-game successful streak, however have a slew of accidents.
Within the span of a pair weeks, your entire proper aspect of their protection corps has gotten damage, with Tony DeAngelo, Scott Perunovich and Adam Boqvist changing Dobson, Pulock and Mayfield.
Dennis Cholowski, a wholesome scratch in six of the previous seven video games, rejoined the lineup in Florida enjoying on the left aspect of a pair with Boqvist.
Anthony Duclair, who missed Saturday’s extra time win over the Lightning with sickness, additionally got here again into the lineup and performed on the highest line rather than Barzal.
Each Barzal and Mayfield appeared to undergo leg accidents on Saturday.
Mayfield was maintaining weight off his proper aspect after crashing into the tip boards and Barzal struggled to rise up after blocking Darren Raddysh’s shot off his kneecap at five-on-six.
Barzal already missed 21 video games this season with an undisclosed upper-body damage.
Mayfield performed simply 50 video games final season and underwent surgical procedure after breaking his left ankle whereas blocking a shot on opening night time.
With Jakub Skarek being the fourth goaltender to start out a recreation for the Islanders this season, it was the primary time since 2015-16 that the membership used that many netminders.
Thomas Greiss, Jaroslav Halak, Jean-Francois Berube and Christopher Gibson have been the 4 that season.