The new NHL season is right around the corner, and New York Islanders center Matthew Barzal is ready to compete with his team.
After missing 52 games of last season with an upper-body injury early in the campaign and then suffering a season-ending knee injury in February, the veteran is prepared to be a full participant in training camp.
“I feel good. I feel like I’ve had a great summer,” Barzal told Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News. “It forced me to be extremely focused this summer and put every drop of energy into getting back. I’m obviously a competitor. I don’t take anything for granted. So I want to get back to where I was pre-injury. I think I did a great job this summer of getting my strength back, mentally getting stronger. I feel good.”
“I feel like I got a mentality: when you have an injury like the one I did, you can go two ways with it mentally. You can kinda sulk in it, let it kinda own you. And it did early on. Watching it, it kills you at times, but then you flip a switch and you put everything into rehab and getting better. So it’s more so just a mental — it’s fully healed. It’s good to go. There’s no worries about that. Mentally, it’s just a matter of doing whatever it takes to get back to being the player I was.”
The Islanders missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season with a 35-35-12 record and 82 points. Head coach Patrick Roy will return as the team looks to rebound.
New York will start the regular season on October 9 in Pittsburgh against the Penguins.
