New York Islanders Practice Media Availabilities | 10/20/25

New York Islanders Practice Media Availabilities | 10/20/25

Of course, uh, two straight regulation wins. How does it give the group confidence? Yeah, it does. Um, especially, um, I don’t think we should have been 0 and three, but that’s that’s how the league is and, um, started to win. So, it’s nice to get two in a row and kind of get that, you know, mojo going a little bit. Just talk about the chemistry of your line with Horvat and Heinman. Of course, Hinimman adding that level of physicality and Bo with the offense, but what’s been clicking among the three of you guys? I think we’re all all kind of different. Um, you know, obviously Bo’s a two-way centerman that kind of scores a lot of goals when you give him the shots and, uh, Hine’s all allaround hell of a player. Um, I think his shots very underrated. He’s got a very good one and like you said, he’s very good on the for check. He’s physical, skates very well, and um, yeah, no, it’s been pretty good so far. Like, look at we’re clicking a little bit. Want to ask you more about Horvat. Of course, you’ve talked about your friendship with him from playing with team Canada together, but you were the same draft year. Do you have any memories of him with him um, combine and on your draft day? Yeah. uh mem Cup. We played against each other. He was in London. We’re Halifax. Um kind of played I want to say when I was eight years old, summer hockey from from junior to Um always kind of find a way to play against each other. Um like hockey Canada, it was nice to play with him, not against him. I never really like playing against him when I was younger. Um he’s a hell of a player. Um very mature even at at 10 years old the way his game was playing. So um it’s nice to play with him. When did you start to like become friends with him at that point? Yeah, probably. Um there’s a sign of respect. Obviously, we’ve played so many games against each other, so there’s that that respect from from me and him. But um probably U8 is that first tournament um over in I think it was Slovakia back then or Czech Republic and yeah, kind of had a friendship there and he’s always been a nice guy and easy to hang around with. And as you’re acclimating to Long Island, is he one of the guys that kind of gave you Rex or, you know, had dinner with you? Yeah, definitely. Um I knew I knew PJ Anthony. There’s a lot of guys I knew. Um but yeah, he’s been helping me a lot, especially my wife and his wife’s been helping um my wife a lot. So, um it’s been a very easy transition. The guys have been awesome with it. And uh yeah, same. And you have a point every single game you’ve appeared in so far at the season for the Islanders. What’s been working in your game individually? Um just feel comfortable. Um preseason you’re trying to get your legs going, trying to get the system going on your new team, but um I feel like I’m not thinking anymore on the ice. I’m just kind of playing my game and um like I said, Bo and Heine have been doing a hell of a job. So, um yeah, we got to keep that going. What does that do in terms of confidence for this group? Well, I think, you know, I think we played a really solid game against Edmonton, I think uh the game in Ottawa, it was a little bit too much of a track meet for our liking and and gave up too many chances, but I think at the end of the day, we found two points. So, um it’s good to to back up the game on um in against Edmonton with a win, but we have uh some stuff to clean up from that Ottawa game and um thought we did a good job today of looking at that and cleaning it up and um getting ourselves ready for tomorrow. I know you mentioned those improvements and also the strong win against Edmonton, but what’s been working in the third period in the past two games? Well, I think we’ve been for for the most part, we’ve been smart. Um, we knew what we had to do in Ottawa and where that game was going and the kind of the trend that had happened in the first two periods and we knew if uh we corrected a couple of those things for at least the last 20 uh we put ourselves in a position to come back and I think we did a good job of executing that. I’ve got to ask you about the Iron Man mask. Uh take me through just whose idea was that? It’s just um we we we saw a clip of uh someone else having one of those things and it’s pretty pretty cool. There’s nothing more nothing more to that other than that we thought that thing was awesome. So picked one up for ourselves and uh we got to work on we got to figure out how we how to use it properly. We’ll get there. But uh kind of a fun little thing to do after the game. Does it feel tight on the head or can you see out of it? Like what’s the mechanics there? No, it’s it’s a legit helmet. It’s movie quality. Um, it fits. If it fits Bo and I’s head, then it’s going to fit everyone else’s. So, we’ll uh we’re pretty good in that spot. And is the plan to go with Sroken? Yes. Soren will play tomorrow and uh Reic will play against Detroit. You you’ve used a couple of different combinations on the fourth line, right? Um had something new today. What What’s the secret sauce you’re looking for there? No secret sauce. I mean, we um we got a lot of good players and we’re going to rotate some guys and there’s some guys going to be in and out of the lineup and ML been playing really well. Like I said to him this morning when I met with him, he’s been playing good hockey, but that’s the situation he’s in. And with Cippy, I know it was a little bit on the defensive details you want to see better or not just that. I mean, there was overall I mean, we want him to be better on our with puck decision, soft lock, and stuff like this, but again, um, he’s he’s back in the lineup and be up to him to force us to keep him in. And with Simon Holmstrom, last season was, you know, I don’t know if you want to call it a breakout season, but he had a really good season last season. And this year, whatever, you know, the production hasn’t been there, you know, it’s only five games, but what what are you seeing from him? Is there any difference, you know, in his game right now? No, I I feel like he’s been playing some good hockey. Um um I serious I really feel like he was was doing a lot of good things offensively, defensively, but hey, that’s the beauty to have a good lineup. I mean, you you have to make some decisions and right now I mean we uh feel that’s the best lineup for us. Andrew Lee said that he feels that the team is playing really smart third period. What’s been the key to that in the past two games? Well, first of all, we had great save by Ilia in that third period. I mean, that that that uh backboard coming across save he made in that third period and then the penalty shot were big saves. But I mean I think we we have a lot of confidence in oursel in the way that um we know that if we just keep playing our game uh good things will happen to us and that’s what we did. I mean we were not happy in the first two period because we gave too many chances from the slot and and and the the pocket area. So we had to to be tied it up there and and I thought that’s what we did in the in the third period. Going into Suken, how much of the thought process there is just how he finished that game against Ottawa? Like I said, I mean, he one save at a time and and I thought that’s that’s the approach he had. He we gave way too many pocket chances in that game. I mean, and we talked about it this morning, but I mean, and he made some really important save at the key moment in the game. That’s what you want from your goalie and that’s what he did. as a goalie when you when you’re feeling good about where you’re at, you just how important is it to just go back out there as soon as possible and keep it going? I think it is. I think it is. You want to get some momentum and and and feel good about yourself. And I hope that um he’s going to get a lot of confidence from that third period. He should because he played really

Hear from Anders Lee, Jonathan Drouin and Head Coach Patrick Roy after today’s practice on the Island!