RALEIGH, N.C. – Mathew Barzal will be held out of the Islanders’ lineup on Thursday night against the Hurricanes at Lenovo Center for disciplinary reasons, coach Patrick Roy announced.
“He was late this morning here,” Roy said after the morning skate. “So that’s the culture of our team and we made the decision to not play him tonight. Barzy doesn’t feel good about it but you respect the decision. He understands it. He was really good about it.”
Roy added Barzal will return to the lineup on Friday night when the Islanders conclude this four-game road trip in Washington.
“Absolutely no one here is mad at Barzy,” said Roy, clarifying that Barzal was late getting to the arena for the morning skate. “It’s just the culture that we put in place. We’re a team. We stick together.”
The top-six center has two goals and six assists in nine games.
Roy said the lineup for Thursday’s crucial match against the Hurricanes – the Islanders started the road trip with a 4-3 shootout loss in Philadelphia on Saturday and Tuesday’s 5-2 defeat in Boston – had not been finalized with a call-up possible from the Islanders’ AHL affiliate in Bridgeport.
Defenseman Alexander Romanov will be activated off injured reserve to rejoin the lineup after missing five games with an upper-body injury. Laurel Hollow’s Marshall Warren, who played his first two NHL games to start this trip paired with defenseman Tony DeAngelo, was pulled off the ice just before the morning skate began.
For the Hurricanes, Sound Beach’s Brandon Bussi, a 27-year-old undrafted free agent goalie, will play his fourth NHL game. Bussi will become the second Long Island netminder to face the Islanders after Farmingville’s Keith Kincaid, according to the team’s statistician.
“He’s just a gamer,” said Hurricanes defenseman Mike Reilly, who spent most of the last two seasons with the Islanders. “At the end of the day, he stops the puck and he’s big. He takes a lot of space and if he has to make a big-time save to get over, he’s going to make the effort to get there.”
Bussi will enter Thursday’s match with a 2-1-0 record, a 2.33 goals-against average and a .911 save percentage.
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.