Nov 30, 2023; Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; New York Islanders center Mathew Barzal (13) celebrates his overtime winning goal against the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena. Mandatory Credit: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports
EAST MEADOW, N.Y. — This might just be the best Mathew Barzal has felt on the ice in his NHL career.
The New York Islanders winger earned the NHL’s second star of the week, the league announced on Monday, after recording two goals and five assists (seven points) in two games against the New Jersey Devils and Carolina Hurricanes before having to sit out Saturday’s victory against the Florida Panthers with an illness.
“It’s nice, I guess,” Barzal chuckled. “We played some good hockey over that two-game span so it’s cool to get recognition like that.”
The 26-year-old winger finds himself flirting with a point-per-game pace this season, posting 23 (seven goals, 16 assists) in 22 games. Seventeen of those points, though, have come in his last 13 games. The starting point of that stretch came on a Nov. 4 game against the Carolina Hurricanes in which he posted a goal and an assist which he labeled as “probably one of my favorite games in a couple years.”
The reason? An “eff-it” mindset that he’s been able to maintain for the last month — a month that he told amNewYork has been the best “probably in my career.”
“That’s definitely where it started. From that [Nov. 4] game on — there might have been a lull [in two games against the Philadelphia Flyers around Thanksgiving] — but since then, it’s been steady uphill,” Barzal said. “I say that game was a turning point for me. That game set me off. I don’t know why or what had happened. When you play a team like that where you know it’s just going to be a battle and you just get a little dirty, that kind of becomes natural and the standard.”
At this pace, Barzal is on pace to put up one of the best statistical seasons he’s ever recorded at the NHL…
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