It's clear as day that the New York Islanders are better when Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat are together. Head coach Patrick Roy separated the two after a slump, but they quickly came through in a monumental way when put on the ice together.
It's clear as day that the New York Islanders are better when Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat are together. Head coach Patrick Roy separated the two after a slump, but they quickly came through in a monumental way when put on the ice together.
Whether the New York Islanders make the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs or not, Patrick Roy will likely be here for the 2024-25 season.
Through his time behind the Islanders bench, he's tried different things, altering his forward lines and defense pairings, doing anything he could to find the right combinations to garner winning results.
After rattling off six straight wins from Feb. 26 to March 10, the Islanders lost their spark and dropped five consecutive games before Roy decided to break up his star duo of Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat.
Their line, alongside Brock Nelson, had cooled off quite a bit, and Roy thought moving Barzal around could help spark the offense again.
However, the Islanders continued to lose, counteracting their six-game win streak with a six-game losing streak.
Despite snapping that skid with a 6-3 win against the Winnipeg Jets on March 23, the Islanders entered Monday night's game against the Philadelphia Flyers 1-2-0 over their last three games, putting their season on life support.
Throughout their separation, Barzal continued to put up numbers, with three goals and two assists in five games, three of which came in that win over Winnipeg.
Skating alongside Anders Lee and Hudson Fasching, Barzal, back at center, looked solid, but without an elite partner on his side, his creations weren't leading to many goals outside of that win.
On the other hand, Horvat, centering Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri before playing a game on the win alongside Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Pierre Engvall, had just one assist through six games, cooling off substantially without Barzal.
It was just a bizarre decision to separate the two, but Roy had his reasons, and he's the coach who wants to do nothing but win games.
It was a failed experiment, and with the Islanders trailing 1-0 on Monday night, Roy decided to put the duo back together.
The shift after Matt Martin scored the equalizer in the first period against Philadelphia, the two connected for the go-ahead dagger, with Barzal feeding Horvat in transition for a critical goal:
Even though times were tough for the two and the Islanders on their losing streak, there's no question that they're better together, and the Islanders are more lethal when they're on the ice, out-scoring their opponents 45-32 and out-chancing opponents 449-415, per NaturalStatrick.com.
Horvat was acquired to be Barzal's go-to, and you could tell, whether it was dropped passes or throwing pucks to specific areas while the two were separated, that Barzal was missing that elite finisher.
Horvat has scored 15 of his 30 goals this season at 5-on-5, with Barzal earning the primary assist on 10 of them (66.7%).
Barzal, who has a new career high in goals with 23, has scored 14 at 5-on-5, with Horvat earning the primary assist on five of them.
If the Islanders are going to win games, whether it's earning enough points to sneak into the playoffs or win consistently in 2024-25, their best bet is by having their best two players on the ice together.
Now, it's up to these two to come through and not put doubt in their coach's head about what they're capable of when they're on.
And maybe that's why Roy separated them in the first place.
It could be the same reason why former head coach Barry Trotz separated Anders Lee and Mathew Barzal after years together before reverting.
With eight games to go, the Islanders need these two at their best, coming through in critical moments like we saw on Monday.