Mathew Barzal Reportedly Out Six Weeks After Knee Procedure
Feb. 8: TSN’s Pierre LeBrun provided an update to Barzal’s timeline this afternoon. LeBrun shared that Barzal had a small procedure on his injured kneecap on Thursday, and a normal recovery timeline would place Barzal’s return around six weeks from now. No matter if Barzal returns quicker or later than expected he should return to the Islanders’ active lineup sometime in March.
Feb. 4: Barzal has been moved to injured reserve, per a team announcement. It’s only a procedural move to open up his roster spot.
Feb. 3: The Islanders announced Monday that forward Mathew Barzal will be sidelined indefinitely with a lower-body injury. Defenseman Scott Mayfield will also miss some time with an LBI, although he’s only listed as day-to-day.
Barzal, 27, left Saturday’s overtime win over the Lightning in the third period and did not return after taking a Darren Raddysh slapper to the knee. He skated off under his own power, but he remained out of the lineup in yesterday’s loss to the Panthers as he underwent further evaluation.
The Isles will now be without their highest-paid player for an extended period for the second time this season. He missed 21 games with an upper-body injury in November and December, missing roughly six weeks.
When in the lineup, Barzal has disappointed offensively in 2024-25. He’s shooting at a career-low 7.7% rate en route to a six-goal, 20-point performance through 30 appearances. His 0.67 points per game are third on the team but rank as the worst of his career over a full season, below 2018-19’s 0.76 mark.
Barzal is in the second season of the eight-year, $73.2MM extension he signed in October 2022 with a $9.15MM cap hit. He provided strong value in the first year of the deal, hitting a point per game for the second time in his career in 2023-24, but has continuously seen a dip in his shooting accuracy. He has a 22-team no-trade clause that kicked in last July and remains in effect for the life of the deal.
After spending the first six seasons of his career as a center, continued faceoff struggles and the acquisition of Bo Horvat from the Canucks in 2023 have bumped him to the wing. Injuries everywhere on the Islanders’ roster have meant a rotating cast of linemates for Barzal this season, spending significant time with Horvat, Anthony Duclair, Anders Lee, Brock Nelson, and Jean-Gabriel Pageau.
Duclair and Lee, as well as Kyle Palmieri and Maxim Tsyplakov, will comprise the Islanders’ top-six winger group in Barzal’s absence. Most of them have had decent campaigns aside from Duclair, who’s been limited by an early-season leg and injury struggled to get off the ground with eight points in 23 games after signing a four-year, $14MM deal in the summer.
The Islanders’ seven-game win streak came to an end in Florida, but they’ve managed to get back within four points of a playoff spot despite injuries to Hudson Fasching up front and multiple on the blue line, namely their top two righties in Noah Dobson and Ryan Pulock. General manager Lou Lamoriello has been aggressive in replacing his injured blue-liners, acquiring Adam Boqvist, Tony DeAngelo and Scott Perunovich to help keep them in the playoff race. It’s worked, but with a key top-six piece now missing from a bottom-10 offense, it’s yet another significant blow.
Lamoriello could place Barzal on long-term injured reserve to open up some cap flexibility around the trade deadline, but that would require him to remain out through at least March 4 against the Jets. The Isles are among the league’s most cap-strapped teams with $1.95MM in current space, per PuckPedia, and they already have Dobson, Mike Reilly and Semyon Varlamov on LTIR helping them stay compliant.
As for Mayfield, a day-to-day designation means he may remain out until the 4 Nations Face-Off but should return after the break. Combined with Dobson and Pulock, the Islanders are now without their entire regular corps of right-shot defensemen, even if it’s for a brief period. Righties Boqvist and DeAngelo, plus a lefty playing on his off-side in Perunovich, give them an incredibly dynamic puck-moving group in the interim, even if all carry significant weaknesses away from the puck.
Mayfield, 32, has seven points and a +14 rating in 50 games. His 17:33 average time on ice is his lowest since the 2017-18 campaign, though.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Islanders Activate Mathew Barzal, Adam Pelech From Injured Reserve
The Islanders will have two pillars back in action today against the Blackhawks. Forward Mathew Barzal and defenseman Adam Pelech have been activated from long-term injured reserve and standard injured reserve, respectively, reports Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News. The Isles placed goaltender Semyon Varlamov on injured reserve in a corresponding transaction earlier this morning to open a necessary roster spot.
Barzal, 27, returns at the end of his initial four-to-six-week timeline after he sustained an upper-body injury against the Blue Jackets on Oct. 30. The injury cost him 21 of the Islanders’ 31 contests. They’ve also been without Pelech for almost that entire time. He sustained a fractured jaw midway through the Isles’ first game following Barzal’s injury against the Sabres on Nov. 1.
Neither player’s activation is surprising. Barzal returned to practice with the team on Thursday without a no-contact designation and was upgraded to day-to-day. Head coach Patrick Roy told Rosner yesterday that Barzal would be a game-time decision for today’s contest. Pelech returned to practice with the team in a non-contact sweater last week but was upgraded to full contact along with Barzal’s return to the sheet. Roy said yesterday that he expected the veteran shutdown man to return to action in today’s matinee.
The Islanders managed a 9-7-5 record without their highest-paid forward in the lineup. They’ve also been without Barzal’s early-season linemate, free-agent signing Anthony Duclair, after he sustained a leg injury earlier in October. He was also upgraded to day-to-day on Thursday, but Roy confirmed yesterday that he wasn’t quite ready to come off LTIR ahead of today’s game. That record has at least allowed them to tread water in the Eastern Conference playoff race, ending up with a .500 record with about 62% of their schedule still ahead of them. Their points percentage is good enough for 11th in the conference, and they’re currently just one point behind the Senators for a wild-card spot, although Ottawa has a game in hand on them.
After all of today’s moves, the Isles have a full active roster and just over $100K in cap space, per PuckPedia. They’ll need to clear multiple salaries to have space to activate Duclair in the coming days, which will likely involve Engvall returning to the minors after clearing waivers yesterday.
With Duclair still out and Bo Horvat likely to miss today’s game with a minor lower-body injury, Barzal will play center for the first time in quite a while in his return between captain Anders Lee and Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Rosner reports. The 2015 first-round pick wasn’t tracking well offensively before his injury, limited to two goals and three assists in 10 games. The All-Star playmaker was coming off his best season since his Calder-winning rookie campaign in 2017-18, recording a career-best 23 goals with 57 assists for 80 points in 80 games. Besides his rookie campaign, it was his first time reaching the point-per-game mark. They’ll need his production level again to justify his $9.15MM cap hit and give them a chance at a third straight postseason berth.
Pelech returns in his familiar top-pairing role with Ryan Pulock. The 30-year-old lefty had four assists and a -3 rating through 11 contests before the fracture, averaging over 20 minutes per game. At least in the early going of the season, his possession numbers returned to the play that once had him considered one of the best defensive players in the world. The Isles controlled 54.6% of shot attempts with Pelech on the ice at even strength, which will stand as a career-high for the 10-year veteran if it continues. Isaiah George and Grant Hutton will be healthy scratches on the blue line, while Dennis Cholowski flanks Scott Mayfield on their bottom pairing.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Metropolitan Notes: Islanders, White, Kolosov, Stillman
Islanders star Mathew Barzal practiced Thursday for the first time since sustaining an upper-body injury at the end of October, relays Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News. He was joined by fellow IR-bound impact pieces Anthony Duclair and Adam Pelech, all of whom weren’t carrying any contact restrictions, per Rosner.
None of the trio will play tonight against the Blackhawks, but head coach Patrick Roy told Rosner that they’ve all been upgraded to day-to-day. Barzal is at the end of his four-to-six-week return timeline from his UBI, while Duclair is already a week past his projected four-to-six-week return window from a freak leg injury in just his fifth appearance of the season. Pelech never landed a specific timeline in his return from a jaw injury he sustained against the Sabres on Nov. 1.
Today marked the latter two’s first time skating with the team without a non-contact designation, although they’d both returned to practice within the last week. The Islanders must make a few roster moves to activate their pair of top-six forwards and top-four defender. Their active roster is full with Barzal and Duclair on LTIR and Pelech on standard IR, so they’ll need to make three reassignments to be compliant. One should be goaltender Marcus Högberg, who’s up from AHL Bridgeport on an emergency basis while veteran backup Semyon Varlamov deals with a lower-body injury. Rookie defenseman Isaiah George is waiver-exempt and will likely be the second demotion, but all other likely candidates for reassignment require waivers. Winger Hudson Fasching, who’s averaging just 8:39 per game through 10 appearances this season, seems like the best option to expose to the wire.
While Barzal was averaging a career-high 21:12 per game before his injury, he was off to a slow start offensively, with two goals and three assists for five points in 10 games. His and Duclair’s nearing returns will allow Roy to reunite them on the top line with Bo Horvat, a new-look unit that dominated play with a 64.6% expected goal share before injuries struck, per MoneyPuck.
There’s more out of the Metropolitan:
- The Devils’ demotion of defenseman Nick DeSimone yesterday wasn’t a paper move. They’ve opted to give a different minor-league mainstay a stint on the NHL roster as an extra defenseman, announcing the recall of Colton White from AHL Utica. White, 27, was a New Jersey fourth-round pick in 2015 and returned to the organization last offseason as a free agent on a two-year, two-way deal after spending the prior two years in the Ducks organization. He hasn’t appeared in an NHL game since skating in a career-high 46 contests with Anaheim in 2022-23, during which time he recorded six assists and 34 hits with a -17 rating while averaging 14:32 per game. The 6’1″ lefty has eight points and a -2 rating in 20 games with Utica this year, matching his point total from last season with San Diego in 53 games.
- Flyers netminder Aleksei Kolosov has temporarily cemented his spot as No. 2 on their goaltending depth chart behind Samuel Ersson, head coach John Tortorella told reporters today (including Charlie O’Connor of PHLY Sports). The 22-year-old Belarusian has battled it out with fellow rookie Ivan Fedotov this season, and both have gotten extended looks with Ersson missing significant time last month with a lower-body injury. Philadelphia has carried three goalies since Ersson returned to health, though, a plan that doesn’t appear to be imminently changing. Kolosov has a 3-5-1 record in nine showings this year with a .881 SV% and 3.29 GAA but leads Flyers netminders with 0.1 goals saved above expected, per MoneyPuck. That’s a testament to the quality of chances he’s faced – the Flyers are allowing 3.13 xGA per game with Kolosov in net compared to 2.23 with Ersson. His numbers also clearly exceed those of the 28-year-old Fedotov, who has a .877 SV% and -3.5 GSAx through 10 games.
- The Hurricanes have again swapped extra defenders, adding Riley Stillman to the roster today from AHL Chicago after having Ty Smith fill that role for their past couple of games. Stillman, 26, has been rostered twice since being activated from injured reserve in November but has yet to suit up for Carolina, which inked him to a two-way deal over the summer. The veteran of 158 NHL games with the Panthers, Blackhawks, Canucks, and Sabres has two assists and a +1 rating in seven minor-league contests in 2024-25.
Mathew Barzal, Anthony Duclair Close To Returning For Islanders
The 2024-25 NHL season hasn’t gone as planned for the New York Islanders. They are the only team in the Eastern Conference unable to amass double-digit win totals in the regular season and sit three points back of the last wild-card position with three more games played.
Some blame can be placed on New York’s inability to stay healthy this season. Defenseman Adam Pelech and Mike Reilly are currently positioned on the team’s injured reserve and forwards Mathew Barzal and Anthony Duclair are on the team’s long-term injured reserve. Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News shares that things are about to change with the two latter players.
Rosner writes that Barzal has finally resumed skating for the Islanders after missing his 17th straight game a few nights ago. New York’s most talented player has been dealing with an upper-body injury since late October after blocking a shot from Columbus Blue Jackets’ forward Yegor Chinakhov. Likewise, Duclair has been skating for the last few weeks and should be activated from LTIR before Barzal.
The two have missed a combined 39 games for the Islanders this season and their offense has struggled in their absence. New York has typically hovered around three goals per game since the 2018-19 season but has now fallen to last in the Eastern Conference with a 2.48 GF/G average.
Barzal wasn’t a game-changing threat when healthy this season scoring two goals and five points through his first 10 games. His absence was felt elsewhere though as teammate Bo Horvat has lost nearly all goal-scoring touch without his typical linemate. Horvat scored three goals in 10 games with Barzal and has only two scored two goals in the 17 subsequent games without him.
Duclair’s absence has also aided in the offense’s stalling out. He’s typically a surefire bet to score 25 goals when healthy and potted two in his first five games with the Islanders. Furthermore, New York’s powerplay has dropped to 31st in the league with an 11.84% success rate with the man advantage.
The Islanders still have 55 remaining games to recover the season and there should be growing optimism with Barzal and Duclair’s return on the horizon. It’s difficult to imagine New York qualifying for the playoffs for the sixth time in seven seasons if their offense doesn’t recover from the dismal start.
Mike Reilly Out Indefinitely After Heart Surgery, Other Islanders Updates
Cory Wright of the New York Islanders issued several injury updates this afternoon including one unfortunate update for a member of the Islanders’ defense. The organization announced that defenseman Mike Reilly has fully recovered from his concussion suffered on November 1st but underwent a procedure on his heart that will keep him off the ice indefinitely.
There shouldn’t be any long-term concerns for Reilly’s health after fully recovering from the surgery according to a few quotes from New York’s general manager and president of hockey operations, Lou Lamoriello. Lamoriello said, “It was picked up through the different echocardiograms that you do for different reasons that you go through with any post-concussion situation. It’s probably a blessing in disguise of what transpired. They detected this, something that you’re sometimes born with, but never knew. [His quality of life will be] 100% and he will be able to play once this procedure is done. It takes quite a bit of time. It could be several months before he’s back, because of the type of procedure“.
Because of the uncertainty of the recovery process, it’ll likely be some time before the Islanders issue any formal updates on Reilly’s status. Considering Lamoriello mentioned it could take several months, there’s every likelihood Reilly won’t return until next season.
The puck-moving Chicago native has played in 70 games for New York since being claimed off waivers from the Florida Panthers last year. He’s been a steady offensive performer over that stretch with six goals and 24 points, averaging 17:01 a night in an Islanders’ sweater.
The team also issued updates on Alexander Romanov, Anthony Duclair, Mathew Barzal, and Adam Pelech in the announcement. Romanov, the closest to returning, is still considered day-to-day and will be a game-time decision for tomorrow night’s contest against the Calgary Flames.
On the longer-term end, neither Duclair, Barzal, or Pelech have resumed skating, but the team hopes Duclair will soon. He’s been out with a lower-body injury since October 19th and was originally given a four—to six-week recovery timeline.
Barzal and Pelech haven’t been out as long as Duclair. The two were injured in back-to-back games in the first week of November and still haven’t been cleared by the team’s medical staff.
Islanders Place Mathew Barzal On LTIR, Announce Several Roster Moves
The Islanders had some injuries in last night’s victory over Buffalo and it has necessitated some roster moves. The team announced (Twitter link) that blueliners Grant Hutton and Samuel Bolduc were recalled from AHL Bridgeport. To make room on the roster and to keep the team cap-compliant, Adam Pelech was placed on injured reserve while Mathew Barzal was placed on LTIR. Meanwhile, blueliners Mike Reilly and Alexander Romanov are listed as day-to-day with upper-body injuries.
Barzal recently sustained an upper-body injury that caused him to leave the team’s current road trip for more evaluation. That testing has revealed that he’ll miss the next four to six weeks, making him LTIR-eligible as he’ll clearly miss the next ten games and 24 days. Last year, the 27-year-old recorded his first 80-point season since his rookie campaign but he hasn’t been able to maintain that level of production in the early going this season, notching just two goals and three assists in his first ten outings. Nonetheless, his absence will still be a significant one for a team that’s already one of the lowest-scoring teams in the NHL through the first month of the season.
Pelech, meanwhile, was injured versus the Sabres and will carry the same timeline as Barzal for his upper-body injury. With Barzal and his $9.15MM AAV landing on LTIR, there’s no need for them to move Pelech there at this time despite being eligible as they’ll have ample spending room using Barzal’s money. It’s now the third straight year that the 30-year-old will miss significant time due to injury, hardly the ideal spot for one of New York’s most important blueliners. Pelech is averaging over 20 minutes per game in the early going, a mark he has reached in each of the last five seasons. He has four assists, 12 blocks, and 17 hits in 11 outings so far.
As for the recalls, Hutton is in the third and final season of a one-way deal that pays $775K per season. Despite the NHL salary, he has spent the bulk of this deal in the minors, suiting up just twice with the big club over the past two years. This season, the 29-year-old has two assists in nine AHL contests. Bolduc, on the other hand, is more familiar to the coaching staff as he played in 34 games with New York last season but still went unclaimed on waivers last month. He’s making $800K this season on a one-way deal and has five points in his first nine AHL games of the season.
Reilly was also injured against Buffalo and was in enough distress that a stretcher was brought out. While he was able to exit the ice with some help without the stretcher, he obviously didn’t return to the game. Romanov was also banged up in that one but was able to return. With the recalls, New York now has six healthy defenders on the roster which suggests they’re hopeful that either Reilly or Romanov will be able to return in short order.
Mathew Barzal Leaves Road Trip, Being Evaluated For Upper-Body Injury
The Islanders announced Friday that star forward Mathew Barzal has left their road trip and has returned to New York to be evaluated for an upper-body injury. The club will announce a return timeframe in the next few days after he meets with doctors.
Things keep shifting from bad to worse for the Isles, who have dropped three straight and are now last in the Metropolitan Division with a 3-5-2 record. However, they do have games in hand on the sixth-place Flyers and seventh-place Penguins, both of whom they trail by one point. Their league-worst 2.10 goals per game is the major culprit of their struggles, though, and Barzal’s absence certainly won’t help.
It had been an underwhelming start to the season for Barzal, now in his ninth season on Long Island, before sustaining the injury. It’s unclear when it occurred – he logged a whopping 22:46 of ice time against the Blue Jackets in Wednesday’s shutout loss. But he’s been limited to two goals and three assists in 10 appearances with a -3 rating, a rate of production that’s been sliced in half from last year’s point-per-game showing. He’s averaging 2.3 shots on goal per game, down from 3.0 last season. His possession numbers are still substantial, even if his partnership with Bo Horvat on the team’s first line hasn’t been gelling after new linemate Anthony Duclair landed on LTIR with a leg injury last week.
Simon Holmström had been a fixture as the top-line left wing alongside Barzal and Horvat since Duclair’s injury. That experiment will end with Barzal out as the Islanders turn to their veterans for more offense. Anders Lee and Jean-Gabriel Pageau will move up from middle-six roles to flank Horvat on the first line tonight against the Sabres, reports Andrew Gross of Newsday. After sitting as a healthy scratch for three straight, Oliver Wahlstrom will re-enter the lineup.
However, the Isles’ injury situation is not all bad. Head coach Patrick Roy told reporters, including Stefen Rosner of NHL.com and The Hockey News, that defenseman Alexander Romanov will be a game-time decision but will likely return after missing three games with an upper-body injury. He’ll return to his top-pairing role with Noah Dobson – the duo has controlled 51.4% of expected goals when deployed together this season, per MoneyPuck. Romanov, 24, had two assists in seven games before exiting the lineup.
List Of Players Getting Trade Protection On July 1st
In the current Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL and NHLPA, the league players can procure three types of No-Move Clauses in their contracts. The only stipulations to these clauses are that the player in question must be 27 years of age or older and must have accrued seven years of service time at the NHL level. The three types of No-Move Clauses are as follows: No Movement Clause (NMC), No Trade Clause (NTC), and Modified NMC or NTC.
Per the current CBA, an NMC means that a player cannot be waived, assigned to minors, or traded without their consent, and they also must be protected in the event of an Expansion Draft. An NTC is straightforward — giving the player protection from being traded without their approval. Lastly, a modified NMC or NTC sets an arbitrary number of teams and a time frame when a player can use this protection. In just over a week, an assortment of players will receive trade protection on their current contracts, and CapFriendly has broken it down.
No Movement Clauses
D Charlie McAvoy (Boston)
F Sebastian Aho (Carolina)
D Devon Toews (Colorado)
F Roope Hintz (Dallas)
D Gustav Forsling (Florida)
F Kirill Kaprizov (Minnesota)
F Joel Eriksson Ek (Minnesota)
F Jesper Bratt (New Jersey)
F Timo Meier (New Jersey)
G Ilya Sorokin (NY Islanders)
F Pierre-Luc Dubois (Washington)
No Trade Clauses
F Ross Colton (Colorado)
D Nick Seeler (Philadelphia)
D Vince Dunn (Seattle)
F Clayton Keller (Utah)
D Erik Cernak (Tampa Bay)
D Mikhail Sergachev (Tampa Bay)
Modified No Trade Clauses
F Jordan Greenway (Buffalo) – eight-team no-trade list
F Tage Thompson (Buffal0) – five-team no-trade list
D Rasmus Andersson (Calgary) – six-team no-trade list
D Samuel Girard (Colorado) – nine-team no-trade list
F Miles Wood (Colorado) – six-team no-trade list
F Alex DeBrincat (Detroit) – 16-team no-trade list
F Adrian Kempe (Los Angeles) – 10-team no-trade list
F Nico Hischier (New Jersey) – 10-team no-trade list
D John Marino (New Jersey) – eight-team no-trade list
D Jonas Siegenthaler (New Jersey) – 10-team no-trade list
F Mathew Barzal (NY Islanders) – 22-team no-trade list
D Thomas Chabot (Ottawa) – 10-team no-trade list
F Tanner Jeannot (Tampa Bay) – 16-team no-trade list
F Kyle Connor (Winnipeg) – 10-team no-trade list
Casey Cizikas Out Week-To-Week With Lower-Body Injury
The New York Islanders have announced that fourth-line center Casey Cizikas is out week-to-week with a lower-body injury.
According to the New York Post’s Ethan Sears, the Islanders are trying out “completely different” forward lines in the aftermath of this injury. Cizikas is normally entrenched as the team’s fourth-line center, on an “identity line” with Matt Martin and Cal Clutterbuck. Jean-Gabriel Pageau has now taken on that role in his absence, while star forward Mat Barzal has shifted from Bo Horvat‘s wing to Pageau’s old spot at third-line center, among other changes.
Cizikas played in the Islanders’ last game, but was knocked out of the contest after just four minutes of time on the ice. The 32-year-old veteran of nearly 800 games has scored 11 points in 39 contests this season. He’s most valued on Long Island for his work ethic and defensive abilities.
He’s the team’s leading penalty killer at the forward position, meaning the Islanders will need another center (likely Horvat, since Pageau is already a regular penalty killer) to step up and fill in some of those short-handed minutes left behind by Cizikas.
Snapshots: Tanev, Barzal, Sillinger
In a longer review of the rumors circulating around the Toronto Maple Leafs and Calgary Flames defenseman, Chris Tanev, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman believes that if the Maple Leafs acquire Tanev, they may look to sign him rather quickly to an extension (Link). Being a native of Toronto, Tanev may take a discount to finish his career with his hometown team. Still, at his age, and with more important internal free agents on the horizon, it may be difficult for the Maple Leafs to make it work.
In the article, Friedman said, “He’s a Toronto guy, Treliving signed him, I bet he’ll have a good idea of what it will take to keep him. That’s the one guy I think Toronto goes hard to get, because even if he’s acquired as a rental, I think they’re going to be pretty confident they can keep him. But we’ll see.”
Although Tanev could significantly improve the Maple Leafs’ defense, with William Nylander, Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi, and T.J. Brodie, among others, set to hit unrestricted free agency next summer, signing Tanev to an extension could become close to impossible. It is not a foregone conclusion that Toronto will sign all these players to extensions, or even that they are interested in resigning all of them, but the Maple Leafs should be trying to keep their cap situation as open as possible for next summer.
Other snapshots:
- The New York Islanders announced that forward Mathew Barzal will miss tonight’s game with an illness. Continuing with an organizational theme for the last several years, the Islanders once again have one of the lowest-scoring rosters in the league, with only five players scoring more than five goals through 20 or more games. Barzal, who is leading the team in points, has seven goals and 16 assists, once again showing off his elite playmaking abilities.
- One of the missing players from the Columbus Blue Jackets practice this morning was forward Cole Sillinger, who is out with an upper-body injury and is considered day-to-day (X Link). Although Columbus has picked things up a tad since a rough start to the season, Sillinger is now in his second season of dramatically struggling with production. In 88 games played over the last two seasons, Sillinger has only scored four goals and 16 assists, after scoring 16 goals and 15 assists in 79 games in his rookie season.