When Mathew Barzal was growing up in Coquitlam, he went to a lot of Vancouver Canuck games. Tonight he gets to skate on the same ice as his boyhood heroes when the Canucks play in the Brooklyn arena that is home to the New York Islanders, where Barzal is turning heads in his rookie season as an NHLer.
“It’s going to be cool playing against the Sedins,” Barzal told TSN1040 in a phone interview on Monday.
But not as cool as it will be on March 5, when the Islanders pay their only visit of the season to Rogers Arena.
“I’ve got it circled on my calendar,” Barzal said. “It’s going to be a big night.”
By then Barzal, who played his minor hockey at Burnaby Winter Club and six games for the Coquitlam Express of the BC Hockey League before he graduated to the Western Hockey League’s Seattle Thunderbirds, will likely be in the thick of conversations about the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year. In 23 games so far this season for the NHL team that drafted him 16th overall in the 2015 NHL entry draft, Barzal has scored 23 points, tops amongst the league’s rookie players.
In one of those games, against the Colorado Avalanche on Nov. 5, Barzal scored five assists, the most ever by a first-year player for the Islanders, a team that won four Stanley Cups in the 1980s with superstars like Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier in their lineup.
After a stellar junior career in Seattle that included a WHL championship last year along with a silver medal playing for Canada at the 2017 World Junior Championship and a bronze medal at the U18 championship in 2014, Barzal got a taste of NHL life at the beginning of the 2016 season when he played two games for the Islanders. He didn't get any points.
But this year he’s getting the full meal deal. And feasting on the scoreboard.
Playing on a line with veterans Jordan Eberle and Andrew Ladd — another B.C. boy — Barzal told TSN1040, he’s being given plenty of opportunities to learn what it takes to be a top NHLer. Having bonafide superstar John Tavares as a teammate has also helped.
“He’s just such a good leader to have,” Barzal said. “He’s just a good guy to look up to.”
Though the Islanders are based in Brooklyn, Barzal is living in the basement suite of teammate Dennis Seidenberg’s home in suburban Garden City, on Long Island. He said even with the opportunities of the big city just a train ride away, he doesn’t have much time to indulge.
“There’s no stopping to the season,” he said. “There’s always a game the next day. You’ve got to go to work every day.”
Mathew Barzal's first NHL goal
