New York’s star forward faces a race against time for opening night as management prioritizes long-term health over immediate return following a flare-up of chronic knee inflammation.
EAST MEADOW, NY -- On Wednesday, the New York Islanders announced that forward Mathew Barzal would not be skating for two weeks due to aggravation of a prior injury that caused inflamation.
"He is actively working to get back to full health," the Islanders said. "There is nobody more committed than Mathew to getting his body to the level where he thrives on the ice. We expect him to continue getting healthy and back in the lineup as soon as possible."
On Feb. 1, 2025, Barzal blocked a Darren Raddysh shot off his left knee cap. The injury required a procedure that ended his season.
Throughout the 2025-26 season, Barzal would take some skates off as they managed it. He even came home from this summer's World Championships to make sure he'd be good for the start of the season.
While he hasn't been ruled out for opening night against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sept. 30, his availability is up the air.
"Well, it's something that we've been managing for over a year, right?" Islanders general manager Mathieu Darche said on Thursday morning. "Unfortunately, I was in the building when he took that shot, and we've been managing it. Last year, we managed it. Every now and then there's some inflammation, and just over the summer, as he ramped up, there was a bit more inflammation. So we just want to make sure that we control it. So it's nothing new. It's just something we have to control.”
As for the two-week timeline: “It could be a little bit before, too. We just said two weeks. Whether — could we say 12 days, 13 days, 10 days? I guess we just said two weeks. He still has a chance for opening night. Is it guaranteed he's there opening night? No, it's not, because we're playing the long game here."
Darche continued: “It's something we'll have to manage all the time because he did have an injury in his knee, and it's fine. There's a lot of players that manage stuff every day throughout their career. So that's just something we're going to manage. "We thought, only meeting after the physical yesterday, meeting with the doctor, with Mathew, with his agent and all that, ‘Hey, let's make sure we control that inflammation,’ and hopefully he'll be good to go.”
The Islanders expected Barzal to be their second-line center to begin the season, but with his absence, that creates an opportunity for Calum Ritchie to win that job, if Barzal does indeed have to miss time once the regular season begins.
