Islanders’ pair of games to finish road trip will be extremely telling

RALEIGH, N.C. — By the time the Islanders fly back home Friday evening, they and everyone else will have a much better idea of what kind of team they are.

Through their first nine games, perhaps the only thing you can say for certain is that Matthew Schaefer will get a 10th game Thursday in Carolina, and thus use up the first year of his entry-level contract.

Schaefer’s ascendence into not just a surefire No. 1 pick but a player who looks like he can be for the Islanders of today what Denis Potvin was for the Islanders of yesteryear has colored all of the discourse about this team so far, and rightly so. It has also overshadowed a meandering 4-4-1 start over which the Islanders have shown that they are entertaining, but not quite that they are a good team.

If things looked trending in that direction heading into the weekend, with the Isles having won four in a row, that’s all gone now after a pair of blown 2-0 leads led to in defeats in Philadelphia and Boston.

It’s noteworthy, too, that the Islanders haven’t played a team that’s considered a surefire playoff outfit in two weeks, since they started that win streak at home against Edmonton. That is about to change as they face the Hurricanes and Capitals over the next two days, both on the road, in what will be their toughest pair of games this season, and their first back-to-back.

“We gotta regroup,” Ryan Pulock said Tuesday night after the Islanders lost 5-2 to the Bruins. “We gotta talk about it. We gotta find a way to be a little sharper for the full 60. Obviously going to Carolina, we know it’s a tough place to play. We gotta look at tonight, learn from it. We have to have our best game in Carolina.”

The Islanders’ best game seems to be pretty good. Over spurts, including the first period Tuesday, the Isles have shown they can control play with an aggressive forecheck, cycle for shifts at a time, and possess a lineup that balances skill and physicality reasonably well.

That, however, has been overshadowed — and was in each of their last two games — by a tendency to lose focus, by old issues breaking the puck out or killing penalties cropping up again, and by a No. 1 goaltender in Ilya Sorokin who still doesn’t look quite like himself.

Against some teams, the Isles can get by with the Jekyll-and-Hyde act they’ve put on display so far this season. But they won’t be able to here in Carolina, nor a day later against theand not against the Capitals, who already spoiled the Islanders’ home opener. 

The Islanders are plenty familiar with the Hurricanes, having suffered playoff defeats to Carolina in 2023 and 2024. They’ve struggled plenty with Carolina’s aggressive style before, and with the Hurricanes’ special teams, which are annually amongst the best in the league. Coming to the Lenovo Center always doubles as an acid test for the Islanders within the Metropolitan Division.

Coach Patrick Roy described his team as going through “a learning process” Tuesday night, saying they can’t change their game when leading, or take the sorts of penalties they did against the Bruins.

That’s an understandable way to put it, especially given the presence of two rookies in the defensive corps (Schaefer and Marshall Warren) on Tuesday, but it also begs the question of what expectation the Islanders have of themselves. The thing about learning in the NHL is that there are 82 tests, with one coming nearly every other day, and even this early in the season you can’t write too many of them off without writing off the season, too.

Of course, no one around the Islanders is suggesting that, and nor will they. The next two games, though, are chances to show and not tell.