{"id":250728,"date":"2025-10-30T10:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T10:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/250728\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T10:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T10:48:10","slug":"islanders-pair-of-games-to-finish-road-trip-will-be-extremely-telling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/250728\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders’ pair of games to finish road trip will be extremely telling"},"content":{"rendered":"

RALEIGH, N.C. \u2014 By the time the Islanders fly back home Friday evening, they and everyone else will have a much better idea of what kind of team they are.<\/p>\n

Through their first nine games, perhaps the only thing you can say for certain is that Matthew Schaefer will get a 10th game Thursday in Carolina, and thus use up the first year of his entry-level contract.<\/p>\n

Schaefer\u2019s ascendence into not just a surefire No. 1 pick but a player who looks like he can be for the Islanders of today what Denis Potvin was for the Islanders of yesteryear has colored all of the discourse about this team so far, and rightly so. It has also overshadowed a meandering 4-4-1 start over which the Islanders have shown that they are entertaining, but not quite that they are a good team.<\/p>\n

If things looked trending in that direction heading into the weekend, with the Isles having won four in a row, that\u2019s all gone now after a pair of blown 2-0 leads led<\/a> to\u00a0in defeats in Philadelphia and Boston.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s noteworthy, too, that the Islanders haven\u2019t played a team that\u2019s considered a surefire playoff outfit in two weeks, since they started that win streak at home against Edmonton. That is about to change as they face the Hurricanes and Capitals over the next two days, both on the road, in what will be their toughest pair of games this season, and their first back-to-back.<\/p>\n

\"RyanRyan Pulock of the New York Islanders skates against the Boston Bruins at the TD Garden on October 28, 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gotta regroup,\u201d Ryan Pulock said Tuesday night after the Islanders lost 5-2 to the Bruins. \u201cWe gotta talk about it. We gotta find a way to be a little sharper for the full 60. Obviously going to Carolina, we know it\u2019s a tough place to play. We gotta look at tonight, learn from it. We have to have our best game in Carolina.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Islanders\u2019 best game seems to be pretty good. Over spurts, including the first period Tuesday, the Isles have shown they can control play with an aggressive forecheck, cycle for shifts at a time, and possess a lineup that balances skill and physicality reasonably well.<\/p>\n

That, however, has been overshadowed \u2014 and was in each of their last two games \u2014 by a tendency to lose focus, by old issues breaking the puck out or killing penalties cropping up again, and by a No. 1 goaltender in Ilya Sorokin who still doesn\u2019t look quite like himself.<\/p>\n

\"NewIslanders defenseman Matthew Schaefer (48) skates past Boston Bruins center Pavel Zacha (18) during the third period at TD Garden. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

Against some teams, the Isles can get by with the Jekyll-and-Hyde act they\u2019ve put on display so far this season. But they won\u2019t be able to here in Carolina, nor a day later against theand not against the Capitals, who already spoiled the Islanders\u2019 home opener.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Islanders are plenty familiar with the Hurricanes, having suffered playoff defeats to Carolina in 2023 and 2024. They\u2019ve struggled plenty with Carolina\u2019s aggressive style before, and with the Hurricanes\u2019 special teams, which are annually amongst the best in the league. Coming to the Lenovo Center always doubles as an acid test for the Islanders within the Metropolitan Division.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOn the ice from Long Island\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Islanders by Ethan Sears, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Coach Patrick Roy described his team as going through \u201ca learning process\u201d Tuesday night, saying they can\u2019t change their game when leading, or take the sorts of penalties they did against the Bruins.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an understandable way to put it, especially given the presence of two rookies in the defensive corps (Schaefer and Marshall Warren) on Tuesday, but it also begs the question of what expectation the Islanders have of themselves. The thing about learning in the NHL is that there are 82 tests, with one coming nearly every other day, and even this early in the season you can\u2019t write too many of them off without writing off the season, too.<\/p>\n

Of course, no one around the Islanders is suggesting that, and nor will they. The next two games, though, are chances to show and not tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. \u2014 By the time the Islanders fly back home Friday evening, they and everyone else will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,31031,5791,575,133042,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-250728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-matthew-schaefer","11":"tag-new-york-islanders","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-patrick-roy","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}