NewYorkIslanders.com<\/a>. \u201cThe way it ended last year, none of us were happy. None of us were satisfied with what went down. We have a team now that we believe will push each other and make it as difficult on other teams as possible.\u201d<\/p>\nCizikas spent his offseason balancing mornings of hard training with afternoons dedicated to family. But even while skating with familiar faces, the energy felt different thanks to the arrival of new teammates like goaltender David Rittich, and forwards Jonathan Drouin, Maxim Shabanov, and Emil Heineman. The veteran core, which includes Anders Lee, Mathew Barzal, Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock, and Brock Nelson\u2019s long-time running mates, knows they have something to prove.<\/p>\n
Confidence has also been boosted by the presence of new GM Mathieu Darche, whose early moves have impressed the room. \u201cWhat he\u2019s done this offseason, he\u2019s put our team in a position to compete,\u201d Cizikas said. \u201cThat\u2019s the biggest thing he wants to see from each guy, to compete on the ice, throughout camp, throughout games. To bring that kind of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Islanders\u2019 lottery win that brought in Matthew Schaefer has added more buzz for the future, but for Cizikas, the present is about proving that the veterans still have fight left in them. As he heads into his 15th NHL season, he knows leadership means setting the tone in camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cTraining camp is always a fun time,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about getting back into that mentality and showing the younger guys what it takes. As veterans, we want to lead the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Casey Cizikas has been part of the New York Islanders long enough to know when a team is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-106482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}