On the day of the first NHL game to be played in the borough of Brooklyn, the Islanders have plenty to smile about.
So on Saturday, forget about Barclays Center, the new plush arena the team will call home in two years, and about the accompanying buzz surrounding a move into the New York City limits. Forget the fanfare and cultural impact. Forget, even, that last season was a franchise breakthrough with the Islanders making the postseason for the first time since 2007.
Instead, focus on what was on display Thursday night at the Prudential Center in Newark, when the Islanders rolled out a team of young players so vastly inexperienced they looked primed to be taught a lesson by the veteran Devils on how to lose. Yet a group of six defensemen without a game of NHL regular-season experience played well beyond their years; a neophyte forward line dazzled with a tic-tac-toe power-play goal; and a second-year goalie proved for the first time on a big stage to be a possible keeper — all resulting in a 5-3 win that was less about the score than about the tangible result.
“To see the growth of our guys is pretty impressive,” coach Jack Capuano said on Friday. “How that corresponds and how that relates to their play on the ice, it’s exciting.”
The team Capuano will dress on Saturday night against the Devils at Barclays Center most likely will not be quite as young. It will be closer to the real team he is set to field come Oct. 4, when the regular season starts back in Newark and expectations for a return trip to the playoffs begin to mount.
But there was a glimpse on Thursday about what the team could look like in 2015-16, when the Islanders are scheduled to move from the Nassau Coliseum and into Brooklyn permanently. Come then, it could be players such as Griffin Reinhart and Ryan Pulock joining Travis Hamonic on the blueline, and players such as Ryan Strome, Anders Lee and Brock Nelson joining John Tavares up front.
“I think depth in the organization is very good,” Tavares said, “because that pushes everyone to be better individually, to make sure they’re ready to go every season understanding that there are a lot of guys that can come in and easily be part of this group because of their skill level, their work ethic, and their competitiveness to play at this level.
“So I don’t think as a player you think [about] what it could be, but you see the growth and health of our organization and especially the depth we have now that maybe we didn’t have a couple years ago.”
So there is a new building waiting, and fans will get to see what it looks like with live hockey on Saturday. To pair it with some of the young players already showing promise, the future is a place where the Islanders want to be.
“I think you can see how things are trending the right way for us as long as we keep putting in the work and the details we need to do,” Tavares said. “I think that goes along with the prospects and where we’re headed once we move to Brooklyn [and] how strong we’ll be because of our depth. A lot of those guys that are prospects now are definitely going to be a part of it.”
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The Islanders announced rugged forward Cal Clutterbuck will miss 4-6 weeks because of a leg laceration sustained in a preseason game Tuesday in Calgary.