{"id":254172,"date":"2025-10-31T22:46:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T22:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254172\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T22:46:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T22:46:13","slug":"islanders-mat-barzal-explains-issue-that-led-to-getting-scratched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254172\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders’ Mat Barzal explains ‘issue’ that led to getting scratched"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Mat Barzal explained his tardiness that led to a healthy scratch<\/a> on Thursday night as an \u201calarm clock issue\u201d on Friday before returning to the Islanders\u2019 lineup against the Capitals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a set bus time in the morning, and I wasn\u2019t on it,\u201d Barzal said. \u201cI was there for the meetings and everything, but Mathieu [Darche], at the start of camp, made clear that punctuality was a big thing. He wants to set a culture here, as do all the players here. So unfortunately, I was the first guy to have an alarm clock issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Barzal, this was the first time he had overslept.<\/p>\n

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

The Islanders making an example of the star center was similar to the Lightning \u2014 for whom Darche worked previously as an assistant GM \u2014 doing the same last season when Brayden Point missed a team meeting.<\/p>\n

Without Barzal, the Islanders lost to the Hurricanes, 6-2<\/a>, and were forced to play a makeshift lineup with 11 forwards and seven defensemen. They did not have an extra forward on the road, and despite attempting to call up top prospect Cal Ritchie, his flight out of New York was canceled due to weather.<\/p>\n

Ritchie was called up on Friday<\/a> and was in the lineup against the Capitals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a ton of dialogue,\u201d Barzal said. \u201cNo hard feelings from both sides, it is what it is. Like I said, unfortunately, I was the culprit of an alarm clock issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt obviously killed me not playing. It\u2019s funny, when I was younger, when I was 8-10 years old, if I did something wrong, my dad wouldn\u2019t take away my Xbox or PS4. He wouldn\u2019t let me shoot pucks in the garage.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot playing yesterday was super-tough. It is what it is. We move on and have a good one tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barzal added that there was no need to address the incident with the team.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"MathewMat Barzal was scratched during Thursday\u2019s Islanders loss. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best thing about [coach] Patrick [Roy] and Mathieu and management that I\u2019ve had here for my whole career is you wake up the next day and you come to work,\u201d he said. \u201cYou do what you\u2019re expected to do. No carryover from anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s game against the Capitals was both the Islanders\u2019 first back-to-back of the season and their first repeat opponent of the season. Washington beat them 4-2 at UBS Arena back on Oct. 11.<\/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

Alex Ovechkin entered Friday one goal short of 900 for his career. Ovechkin scored career goal No. 895<\/a> to pass Wayne Gretzky for the all-time NHL record at UBS last April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Mat Barzal explained his tardiness that led to a healthy scratch on Thursday night as an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,89964,5791,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-254172","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-mathew-barzal","11":"tag-new-york-islanders","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254172","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=254172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}