RALEIGH, N.C. — For the past two months, Mathew Barzal has been forced to watch Bo Horvat from the press box.
If there is a benefit to that situation, though, it’s that Barzal got to see a different angle of Horvat’s game prior to making his anticipated return to the lineup in Game 1 against the Hurricanes on Monday.
“It honestly might be a good thing that he’s up there watching my game a little bit to see my tendencies,” Horvat said. “I kinda know what his tendencies are, he likes to have the puck and be on the perimeter, try to find guys. For me to open up and get those scoring opportunities, for him to find me, we seemed to be doing a good job of that at the beginning.”
Barzal and Horvat got just six full games together before Barzal suffered a suspected knee injury in Boston on Feb. 18, but the early returns were nothing short of excellent. H
orvat scored three goals with an assist, Barzal scored twice with six assists. It wasn’t much of a sample size, but it was all going in the right direction, with Anders Lee playing to Horvat’s left to complete the line.
If they pick up where they left off, it will help give the Islanders a puncher’s chance in a first-round series where they come in as underdogs against Carolina.
“[Horvat] and Leesy, I thought they had a really good low game,” Barzal said. “They were playing a really good give-and-go game down low. Try to just find the high spots. What goes underrated in Bo’s game is his passing. He’s a heck of a passer, sees the ice. I’m just gonna try to get open for him.”
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No one can say with certainty how ready Barzal is until he actually gets on the ice for a full-speed, high-intensity game.
But after three days of practice and over two weeks of skating in preparation, Barzal himself sounds confident.
“I feel like it should click,” he said. “Three lines are still the same, just throwing in a piece. I think it’ll just click just fine, like the way it had been clicking before.”
So, too, do his teammates.
“Look, he’ll have to get up to speed pretty quickly, but I think if there’s someone who can do that with speed, it’s Barzy,” Lee said. “He’ll figure it out. I’m not worried about him to stay the least.”
Alexander Romanov (upper body) will travel with the team to Raleigh, though he’s been ruled out for Game 1. Asked about Romanov’s progression to potentially rejoin the team for Game 2, coach Lane Lambert continued to call the defenseman day-to-day.
“We, certainly, like the fact that he’s skating [on his own] and coming,” Lambert said.
