Gone are the days of the Islanders playing lockdown, low-event hockey. Their strong start under coach Patrick Roy has seen them embrace an up-tempo approach, aided by one of the league\u2019s most dynamic young players in rookie defenseman Matthew Schaefer.<\/p>\n
Schaefer, the No. 1 pick in this summer\u2019s draft, leads rookie defensemen with 23 points. His nine goals rank fourth among all NHL defensemen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s pretty amazing what he\u2019s done so far,\u201d Ruff said. \u201cHe\u2019s been a difference maker for them. He\u2019s a guy that, he\u2019s going to be right up there with the top guys \u2013 and I\u2019m talking (Quinn) Hughes and guys like that \u2013 when it comes to skating and being that offensive, two-way defenseman.\u201d<\/p>\n
New York is tied for second in the NHL with 34 rush goals, according to Stathletes. The Islanders\u2019 one-two punch at center has helped fuel that success, with Bo Horvat tied for first in the NHL in rush goals (8) and Mathew Barzal among the league leaders in controlled zone entries.<\/p>\n
Horvat will be out for the fourth straight game, however, leaving New York to try and snap a two-game losing skid without its leading scorer. The Islanders are coming off a 4-1 loss at home to Vancouver on Friday. Ilya Sorokin started that game, meaning the Sabres will see backup David Rittich (7-3-1, .905 save percentage) in net.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gone are the days of the Islanders playing lockdown, low-event hockey. Their strong start under coach Patrick Roy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-361919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361919","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=361919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}