The New York Islanders will have to open their season without Mathew Barzal, and for now it sounds like they’ll be waiting a while.
The team said today that its star forward will “not skate the next two weeks due to aggravation of a prior injury that has caused some inflammation.” The Islanders added that Barzal is “actively working to get back to full health” and expect him “to continue getting healthy and back in the lineup as soon as possible.”
That timeline makes it look like Barzal will miss the entire preseason, which runs from Sunday through Sept. 26. It also leaves him almost certainly out for opening night on Sept. 30 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The specific injury hasn’t been identified. Barzal missed only one game during the 2025-26 season, and that absence wasn’t injury-related, but there were smaller reports during the year suggesting he was managing some kind of nagging issue.
In April, after the season ended, Barzal said he was still dealing with the effects of the injury he suffered in February 2025, the one that cut short his 2024-25 season. Then in May, he was ruled out of the IIHF Men’s World Championships as a precaution tied to what Hockey Canada called “a minor, pre-existing injury.”
The Islanders didn’t say whether this latest setback is tied to those earlier reports, but their wording about an “aggravation of a prior injury” certainly points in that direction.
Whatever the cause, this is a tough break for New York. Barzal remains one of the club’s most dangerous players, the kind of forward who can tilt a game with speed and skill.
He led the Islanders with 19 goals and 72 points last season, and in his other most recent healthy year he put up 23 goals and 80 points. The 2018 Calder Trophy winner is naturally a center, though he’s spent plenty of time on the wing since the Islanders acquired Bo Horvat.
With Brayden Schenn now on the roster, Barzal looked likely to spend much of this season on the wing anyway, and he was expected to start on Schenn’s line. That plan is on hold for now.
New York just missed the playoffs last season and is trying to get back in the mix, with Ilya Sorokin in goal and Matthew Schaefer adding another high-end piece on defense. If the Islanders are going to make a real run in the Metropolitan Division, they’ll need Barzal healthy and producing at full speed.
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