SUNRISE, Fla. — The Islanders don’t yet know — or aren’t yet saying — how serious the injuries suffered by Mathew Barzal and Scott Mayfield on Saturday night are.
But neither player was in the lineup for Sunday’s 6-3 defeat to the Panthers, and all the Islanders can do now is wait and hope that neither player joins a list of longer-term injuries that already includes Noah Dobson, Ryan Pulock, Marcus Hogberg and Semyon Varlamov.
None of those four are expected back before the 4 Nations break.
Lou Lamoriello said Saturday that Dobson and Pulock would begin skating during the two-week layoff, with Hogberg expected to return on roughly a four-week timetable and Varlamov out indefinitely.
The organizational line regarding Barzal and Mayfield was that they will know more on Monday.
Though, with the Islanders unlikely to practice following a back-to-back with travel home, it seems unlikely that more information will be forthcoming that soon.
“You know what, injuries, it’s unfortunately part of the game,” coach Patrick Roy said before the game as a team spokesman repeated that they would know more tomorrow. “I remember when I was in Colorado, when we lost [Peter] Forsberg in that series against L.A. [in 2001], it was a moment for other guys to take the lead. It’s the same thing right now.”
The Islanders came into Sunday riding a seven-game winning streak, but have a slew of injuries.
In the span of a couple weeks, the entire right side of their defense corps has gotten hurt, with Tony DeAngelo, Scott Perunovich and Adam Boqvist replacing Dobson, Pulock and Mayfield.
Dennis Cholowski, a healthy scratch in six of the past seven games, rejoined the lineup in Florida playing on the left side of a pair with Boqvist.
Anthony Duclair, who missed Saturday’s overtime win over the Lightning with illness, also came back into the lineup and played on the top line in place of Barzal.
Both Barzal and Mayfield appeared to suffer leg injuries on Saturday.
Mayfield was keeping weight off his right side after crashing into the end boards and Barzal struggled to get up after blocking Darren Raddysh’s shot off his kneecap at five-on-six.
Barzal already missed 21 games this season with an undisclosed upper-body injury.
Mayfield played just 50 games last season and underwent surgery after breaking his left ankle while blocking a shot on opening night.
With Jakub Skarek being the fourth goaltender to start a game for the Islanders this season, it was the first time since 2015-16 that the club used that many netminders.
Thomas Greiss, Jaroslav Halak, Jean-Francois Berube and Christopher Gibson were the four that season.
