Islanders fans had been down this road before.
You know the story: the team’s franchise player is due to become a free agent, and constantly says that this is where he wants to be and wants all of the contract stuff to work out.
And then came July 1, 2018, when captain John Tavares left the Islanders to sign a contract with his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs.
Fast forward four years, and Islanders center Mat Barzal was due to become a restricted free agent after the 2022-23 season. There’s a difference in the two situations because Tavares was an unrestricted free agent and was free to go wherever he wanted to go, but hearing all of the same rhetoric with the Barzal contract talks and people wondering “will he stay or will he go” certainly created a high anxiety level in Islanders Country.
But this past Tuesday, Islanders fans were able to breathe a sigh of relief when Barzal signed an eight-year contract extension worth $73.2 million.
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“I was absolutely delighted to hear this news,” said Islanders fan Annmarie Briskie of Wantagh. “I was very concerned that he wouldn't sign. To hear Barzal say almost the identical things that Tavares did actually triggered a PTSD response, made me feel distrustful, and not confident that he would stay.”
It's one thing for a player to say that he wants to stay with a team, but it’s another thing for a franchise to open up the checkbook. The Islanders have certainly been ready to do that with other players, and they made a big statement to the fan base with Barzal’s new deal.
“I am extremely happy that Mat re-signed,” said Eric Roth, a season ticket holder who lives in Plainview. “Locking up the most talented player they have at that price says a lot about the organization's commitment to winning.”
In the age of Twitter and other social media outlets, it can take just a matter of seconds to deliver breaking news, good or bad, to a fan base.
But it took a little longer for Islanders fan Kimberly Moisa to get the good news. Moisa, a registered nurse from Commack, woke up to the news after working a night shift.
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“At first, I didn’t believe it, but I opened my phone to see the news and gained the biggest smile,” said Moisa, better known among Islanders Country as “Isles Girl” from social media. “It was such a relief to realize that he truly wanted to stay and that we wouldn’t have a summer of worry of whether he’d sign. Been there done that.”
Now that Barzal is signed, sealed, and delivered long-term, the Islanders have their cornerstone player locked up, and the focus shifts to the start of the new season and the goal of getting back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. After back-to-back trips to the NHL’s final four, the Islanders faced all sorts of obstacles last season and didn’t qualify for the postseason.
Now the goal is to continue to build a Stanley Cup contender around Barzal.
“I was very happy with the signing,” said Marc Lieber, a season ticket holder of more than 30 years from Jericho. “Now they need to get (Barzal) elite wingers. I had no concern about him leaving because he would have been a restricted free agent.”
With Barzal’s new contract, the hope is that it can put to rest the idea the players don’t want to come to Long Island. The exodus of Tavares was a tough pill to swallow for Islanders Country, but there have been other players who left, along with numerous big name free agents over the years that just wouldn’t put pen to paper on a contract with the Islanders.
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But this is a new era in Islanders history.
The franchise has strong ownership, a magnificent new home in UBS Arena at Belmont Park, and the core of a team that has had a lot of success in recent years.
“Some very good players have cycled through Long Island in the last quarter century,” said Nick Hirshon, author of “Images of America: Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum” and “We Want Fishsticks” and a season ticket holder from Forest Hills. “But no one of Barzal's caliber has committed long term while still in their prime. It's a statement signing that eases the anxieties of the fan base and offers hope that big-ticket free agents might join him here down the line.”
Islanders fans didn’t want a repeat of the sadness and anger than seeped in when Tavares skated home to Toronto. There was a fear that history would repeat itself but four years later, another star player would be true to his words.
Mat Barzal said he wanted to stay, that he wanted to be a New York Islander.
And he is.
Follow Peter Schwartz on Twitter: @SchwartzSports
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