Islanders Hire Siana Sylvester As Mental Health Consultant

According to Andrew Gross from Newsday, the Islanders have hired Siana Sylvester as the teams mental health consultant.  In this role she will work with players, coaches and management for both the Islanders and the Bridgeport Islanders.  In addition to that she will also work with the organizations prospects.

Before joining the Islanders Sylvester was with the company Higher Echelon, Inc. for 7 years.  In her most recent role there she was the Director of Organizational and mental performance.  For more information about the newest member of the Islanders organization, check out the article on the teams website here.

LI Native Marshall Warren Called up, Will Play Tomorrow In Philly

Last night, a couple call ups were announced including defenseman Marshall Warren from Bridgeport.  Warren is an LI Native from Laurel Hollow.

Warren, originally a 6th round pick of the Wild in 2019 is in the second year of a 2 year contract with the Islanders.  He first made an impression with a pre season goal which can be seen here.

Once the season started Warren wasted no time in producing and was named the AHL player of the week for the first week of the regular season registering 5 points in 4 games.  This comes after Warren had 38 points in 53 games for a bad Bridgeport team last year.  

According to the great Eric Hornick, the Islanders long time statistician, Warren will become the first person from Nassau County to ever suit up for the Islanders.  For more on Warren check out this highlight video of him from his draft year.

I am excited to see what we get from him!

Two Weeks in, Where Are We?

The Islanders 2025-2026 season got underway two weeks ago yesterday.  Today were going to go through some of the ups and downs and surprises of the season so far.

To start with, the Islanders opened their season on October 9th versus Pittsburgh, the much anticipated NHL debut for #1 overall pick Matthew Schaefer.  Save for a time in the third period it was a solid game that unfortunately ended up in a loss for the Isles.  You noticed a definite change from last year in the way they played with speed off the rush and of course Schaefer already made an impression recording an assist in his first game.

Then started a home stand with the home opener, the Columbus Day Matinee vs Winnipeg & Thursday night vs the Oilers.  Thus far this season, the home opener and the game vs Winnipeg are the two worst games the team has played.  The home opener until the third period was completely lifeless was just a bad game.  The highlight of that night was of course Matthew Schaefers first NHL goal.  The Winnipeg game, we just didnt seem to belong on the ice with them that afternoon.  One common theme from both games was that our play in our own zone left a lot to be desired and started to be akin to the one year Doug Weight coached us where defense was optional.

Then everything started turning around and the winning streak began.  Thursday night vs Edmonton with David Rittich in net.  With the potency of the Oilers offense and how we had looked in our own zone coming into the game it was kind of bleak.  However, after looking to put it frankly, pretty bad in pre season Rittich looked like a different guy that night.  Horvat and Barzal broke through and got on the score sheet, Horvat in a big way with the hat-trick and they cracked through and got their first win of the season.  

The gutsy Saturday win in Ottawa, wasn't pretty but not all wins will be works of art.  The late goal by Lee showed a lot of tenacity.  As well as the team itself never giving up.  

Tuesday vs San Jose was another solid game, a game with multiple power play goals mind you.  That is not something we have been able to say a lot in recent years.  This was also the night of Matthew Schaefers first NHL multi point game.

Then comes last night, our 4th win in a row and by far the best game we have played all season.  Play in our own zone was sound, even D'Angelo who had struggled with turnovers in recent games.  Rittich came up big again and had a terrific start.  Something encouraging from this game was that the team was able to put up 7 goals and got 0 points from rookie sensation Matthew Schaefer.  It was Schaefers first game in his young career without recording a point.  

Schaefer has been a revelation!  I don't think anyone expected him to be as good, comfortable and just seemingly like a natural fit so early in his NHL career at such a young age.  Can't say it enough, but hes a special talent like we haven't had around here possibly ever.  With his skill level that will no doubt keep improving over the years plus his personality, he could be a NY superstar.

Off the ice, we touched on it the other day but was the big surprise of replacing long time goalie coach Piero Greco after the win versus the Sharks on Tuesday.  For more on this can check out our post about it here.

All in all, we have experienced the ups and downs of an NHL season.  Through 3 games, the Islanders looked like they would be competing for one of the top spots in the draft come next June.  Then came the current 4 game winning streak and that all changed. 

Lets see what the next couple weeks have in store.

Isles Place Gatcomb On Waivers

Earlier today, it was announced that the Islanders placed forward Marc Gatcomb on waivers.

Gatcomb who came out of nowhere last season earned himself a one year extension worth 900k over the summer.  In 39 games last season, Gatcomb had 9 points but whats more is he didn't seem out of place at this level.  Unfortunately for him, with all of our roster moves over the summer he lost his lineup spot and had only played in one game so far this season.

According to Stefan Rosner from thehockeynews, the likely reason the Islanders waived Gatcomb at this time is to create a roster spot and cap space to call up another defenseman.  Alexander Romanov is likely to be out til at least next week, Rosner reported earlier in the day on his other publication, theelmonters.

Islanders Fire Long Time Goalie Coach Greco, Promote Naumovs From Bridgeport

According to Elliotte Friedman, following their 4-3 win vs the Sharks last night, the Islanders made a change at goalie coach, firing long time coach Piero Greco and promoting Sergejs Naumovs from Bridgeport.

Greco had been part of the Islanders since July of 2018.  Under his tenure, along for a lot of it with Mitch Korn the Islanders saw some tremendous things in net, most notably the resurrecting of both Robin Lehner and Semyon Varlamov.  They deserve a lot of praise for their huge part of the teams that went to back to back eastern conference finals, the most success the organization has had in 40+ years.

Unfortunately, since Trotz & Mitch Korn left it has gone down hill.  Sorokin has gone from statistically one of the top goalies in the league to painfully mediocre in recent seasons.  While this change kind of came out of nowhere it shouldn't really come as a surprise given the importance of Sorokin to this organization.

Naumovs coached Sorokin in his final two years in the KHL before he joined the Islanders.  Given the experience they have together, hopefully he is able to light a fire under him and find some faults in his game to help Sorokin return to the player we saw in his first couple years here.