{"id":78438,"date":"2025-08-18T10:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T10:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78438\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T10:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T10:12:07","slug":"inside-look-at-new-york-islanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78438\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside look at New York Islanders"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dobson trade created an opening for Schaefer, who turns 18 on Sept. 5, to break training camp this season and anchor the defense with Alexander Romanov<\/a>, a 25-year-old entering the first season of an eight-year contract he signed July 1, a tantalizing proposition for players and fans. Schaefer signed his entry-level contract Aug. 4, one month after he got a standing ovation when introduced for the annual Blue and White Scrimmage, his first game since a season-ending broken clavicle sustained at the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship on Dec. 27, 2024.<\/p>\n

“There’s been some hope restored and there’s a direction with youth involved, and really talented youth,” Islanders television analyst and retired NHL forward Cal Clutterbuck<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

Drouin signed a two-year contract to help revive a 31st-ranked power play (12.6 percent). Barzal is healthy from two upper-body injuries that limited him to 30 games and is projected for return to center next to Simon Holmstrom<\/a>, a 24-year-old who signed a two-year contract after an NHL career-high 45 points (20 goals, 25 assists) in 75 games. Starting goalie Ilya Sorokin<\/a> is two years removed from a Vezina Trophy nomination and went 30-24-6 with a 2.71 goals-against average, .907 save percentage and four shutouts last season after rehabbing from back surgery. He faced 1,695 shots on goal, third-most in the NHL behind Igor Shesterkin<\/a> of the New York Rangers (1,751) and the Lightning\u2019s Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a> (1,716).<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan Division could be wide open, and the Islanders hope to seize it.<\/p>\n

“That’s where we expect to be,” Lee said. “We’re not happy with anything that happened with those results last year. There’s a lot of excitement from us as a team. We’re all looking forward to just getting back on the ice, getting together as a group and taking this in a new direction. We’re in a spot (where) we did everything we could to become better.”<\/p>\n

The Islanders are better equipped for a postseason bid, many thanks to good fortune against long odds.<\/p>\n

“I definitely think this team can be in the playoffs this season,” Darche said. “That’s what I want the players’ mindset to be when the season starts.”<\/p>\n

NHL.com deputy managing editor Adam Kimelman contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dobson trade created an opening for Schaefer, who turns 18 on Sept. 5, to break training camp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-78438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}