Islanders Await A New Home Arena After Finishing A 13-Game Road Trip


The NHL season has been running for over a month now, and Islanders have spent more time at a Chicago restaurant than at home ice. They spent more minutes in the penalty area in Winnipeg than they spent in the locker room at home.

They’ve skated in 11 cities, four time zones, and two countries, flown in all directions on the compass, and featured in nearly a dozen hotels across the continent. They did all of that and still haven’t played at home.

And it’s not over.

After 11 back-to-back road games, the Islanders will add two more in Florida on Monday and Tuesday. The longest straight line of road games in NHL history, and the longest to start a season – a unique challenge for players, coaches, equipment managers, travel secretaries and forlorn fans.

“It’s different,” said the team’s veteran center, Casey Cizikas. “Last year our longest flight was just over an hour. We’re traveling a lot more this year and playing with different teams, so there’s a lot of uncertainty out there.”

It’s been so long since the Islanders last played a home game that it’s hard to remember where home is. A few more days, nowhere.

Unusual timing was necessary because the Islanders were moving to a new arena in Elmont, NY and needed extra time to finish. Months ago, when it became clear that construction would resume in October, the NHL’s traditional opening month, the Islanders asked the league for accommodation.

So the equipment bags were loaded and the Islanders were sent on a tour of North America, where they would play in arenas they hadn’t seen in almost a year, mostly in front of hostile fans.

“Frankly, it’s not ideal,” said defender Scott Mayfield. “You also want to play in front of your own fans.”

That will finally happen on Saturday, against the Calgary Flames at the Islanders’ new home, UBS Arena, about six weeks after the first puck of the season drops.

By then, the Islanders will have played a third of their away schedule for the season against 12 teams they’ve never seen in the 2021 season, which has been shortened and restructured due to the coronavirus pandemic.

They’ll enter the action on Monday night with a record 5-6, and those 13-game away games are against two of the league’s best teams, the reigning champions Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers.

There were no complaints from the public, and the team even appreciated the time spent together on the road to open a long season. Players also know that the schedule with long vacation days could be worse.

“We knew it would be difficult,” said defender Ryan Pulock. “Traveling and playing takes a toll on you mentally and physically. But we’ve done a pretty good job so far. A few more left. It just means we’ll be playing more games at home later in the year, which is positive.”

The only team to play more away games in a row were the 2009-10 Vancouver Canucks, which were kicked out of town for 14 games due to the Winter Olympics held February 12-28, 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia. For the Canucks, it was actually two trips separated by a vacation.

They hit the road for eight matches. Then the NHL had a few weeks off. Andrew Raycroft, a Canucks goalie at the time, said he and about half of the team went to Hawaii and the other half to Mexico.

On their return, they met in Ohio for a four-day camp before playing six more road games starting against the Columbus Blue Jackets. They were 8-6 on the tour and later lost in the playoffs to eventual Stanley Cup champions Chicago.

“The first episode was fun, but the second half really started to drag on,” said Raycroft, now a Boston Bruins broadcast analyst. “But we got better throughout the whole process. That’s when you truly become a team.”

After a win in Toronto, Raycroft recalled events of team commitment on trips, including a raucous trip, a fishing trip, and a golf trip in Florida.

In this year’s schedules, the Islanders had enough room to split the long-distance into separate trips and spend a lot of time in their own homes and practice multiple times at their facility in East Meadow, NY.

The first and longest stage started in Raleigh, NC, Miami and Chicago. They enjoyed a big team dinner in downtown Chicago and won their first game of the season there. They then moved on to Columbus, Ohio and Phoenix and Las Vegas for two more wins.

After that, there was only one game scheduled for the next 10 days (overtime loss to the Predators in Nashville), which became a trip in its own right.

Four days after that game, the team played in Montreal, where Isles coach Barry Trotz met a friend for dinner for the first time in months.

“It was like the third time in a restaurant since the epidemic started,” Trotz said. “I mean, it’s weird. But it actually felt a little normal.”

Islanders was last in Canada in March 2020.

After defeating the Canadiens, the Islanders flew to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where they beat the Jets on November 6 and began to look like the team that made Lightning the seventh game in last season’s conference finals. But they haven’t won since.

On Thursday, they made their closest contact with a home game: They played the Devils in Newark, NJ. Roughly half of the fans at the Prudential Center were Islander fans who wanted to see their team in person. Still, the Islanders treated it like a road game by spending the night before the game in a hotel in New Jersey. They lost 4-0 and fell below .500.

Raycroft said the long-distance sequence would help the Islanders. Although the team consists mostly of players who have been together for several years, deep playoff run A measure in the so-called bubble last season and at the end of the 2020 season, the long spell on the away kits provided opportunities for team bonding.

Equally important, after the Islanders return from Florida, they will play 31 of their next 46 games at home. Raycroft said withdrawing road games early would give the Islanders a significant advantage over their divisional rivals.

“When I first saw this show, I was like, ‘Wow, it’s been a long time before I played at home,'” Raycroft said. “It must have felt pretty weird. But it will help them in the long run.”

Another bump up ahead: Finally, the Islanders are playing nine of their last 14 away games. At least they’ll know how to do it.



Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *