What a difference a year makes.
A year ago, constructions workers were putting the finishing touches on the Islanders’ new home UBS Arena which forced the team to play all of their pre-season home games in Bridgeport.
While the Islanders waited for their new digs to be completed, they embarked on a season-opening 13-game road trip before coming home with a COVID-19 outbreak and injuries.
The Islanders could never get on track and they failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs after back-to-back trips to the NHL’s final four.
But as they get set for Thursday’s 2022-23 regular season opener against the Florida Panthers at UBS Arena, the Islanders are enjoying a sense of normalcy that they haven’t experienced in quite a while.”
“It’s been three years since we’ve had, and I hate using this word, but normal,” said forward Zach Parise following Tuesday’s practice at Northwell Health Ice Center in East Meadow. “You don’t have all of that other stuff in the back of your mind but I think we’ve all moved on from that. You don’t want to point to all of these excuses from last season. I think we’re just ready to start fresh and play Thursday.”
What also wasn’t normal for the Islanders was having such a long off-season and one thing that won’t feel like normal, at least at the start of the season, will be the man calling the shots behind the bench. The Islanders relieved Barry Trotz at the end of last season and elevated Associate Coach Lane Lambert to become the team’s new Head Coach.
As far as finally having some normality in getting ready for the season, Lambert points out that it’s something commonplace throughout the league.
“I think with everybody it probably seems more normal with every team,” said Lambert. “We don’t look at the past but there’s certainly some degree of normalcy to it.”
Part of that normalcy included actually getting to play preseason games at UBS Arena, something that wasn’t the case last season. Coupled with training camp at their practice facility at Eisenhower Park, things are as normal as they’ve been over the last couple of years.
It just feels like...well you know…normal.
“Yeah, it definitely does,” said forward Josh Bailey. “It felt good to be in our facility and playing some home games and have the arena ready to go and have some familiarity over there. I think it’s prepped us to be ready.”
And after starting last season with 13 games on the road, the Islanders will begin this coming season with four home games starting with Thursday night against the Panthers.
Not that the Islanders expect any of these games to be a walk in the park…or make that Belmont Park, but it’s nice to know they won’t be living out of a suitcase for over a month.
“We feel like we don’t really have a mountain to climb right away,” said forward Anthony Beauvillier. “We definitely feel comfortable playing at home. It’s going to feel like a real home opener.”
As the world continues to try and navigate out of the pandemic, there has been, to a certain extent, a return to normalcy. For the Islanders, the last few things have been anything but normal in many ways but they would love to get back that something that felt formal for a couple of seasons…
To compete for the Stanley Cup.