{"id":573572,"date":"2026-05-13T03:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/573572\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T03:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:06:17","slug":"islanders-mathew-barzal-wont-play-in-world-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/573572\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders&#8217; Mathew Barzal won&#8217;t play in World Championships"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mathew Barzal won\u2019t be going to World Championships after all.<\/p>\n<p>Hockey Canada announced Tuesday that Barzal will miss the competition \u201cas a precaution due to a minor, preexisting injury.\u201d Sidney Crosby was added to the Canadian roster in Barzal\u2019s stead.<\/p>\n<p>The Islanders released a statement saying that Barzal \u201cis expected to have a normal offseason and be ready for training camp.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.45042493;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39360341\" width=\"856\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Mathew-Barzal.jpg\" alt=\"Mathew Barzal was believed to be dealing with a kneecap issue at the end of this past Islanders season.\" class=\"wp-image-39360341\"  \/>Mathew Barzal was believed to be dealing with a kneecap issue at the end of this past Islanders season. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>While Barzal had to deal with lingering effects of the injury that ended his 2024-25 season \u2014 believed to be a kneecap issue \u2014 all season, he never missed games because of it, and rarely if ever missed practice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery second of my day, really, off days or when we weren\u2019t playing was just about managing my body,\u201d Barzal said on breakup day. \u201cThat\u2019s just how I am. Injuries like I had usually take a year or two years to really start to settle in and feel normal again. I definitely had my own program of staying healthy. I could have played every game this year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Given that Barzal initially planned to play at Worlds, pulling out just days before the competition, it\u2019s not clear whether it\u2019s due to a re-aggravation of the same injury or something that wasn\u2019t in the public domain.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The Islanders are set to send three players to World Championships, which start Friday in Switzerland: Emil Heineman and Simon Holmstrom with Team Sweden, and prospect Danny Nelson with Team USA. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mathew Barzal won\u2019t be going to World Championships after all. Hockey Canada announced Tuesday that Barzal will miss&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5,122,1951,3328,159,5190,5189,4,43],"class_list":["post-573572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-islanders","tag-hockey","tag-islanders","tag-mathew-barzal","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkislanders","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116565061754581811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}