VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The confluence of events required for Matt Martin to be back with the Islanders this season was something no one saw coming, and the list does not just include Martin taking a tryout contract and the Islanders suffering a number of injuries.
Perhaps most important was the Islanders making sure Martin knew that, yes, he was wanted back here for a 14th season with the Islanders, and 16th in the NHL and, no, they were not just throwing him a bone by having him come to camp.
“I guess I didn’t want them letting me be around just to be around,” the 35-year-old Martin told The Post. “And if they wanted to go in a direction with leadership and guys in the room, that’s their right.
“I just wanted to make sure — we’ve talked a lot [coach Patrick Roy and I]. All season, really. But we talked a lot in the beginning and I just wanted to make sure he was on board with it and everyone was really on board with it, staff-wise, for me to be in the locker room, cause I’d never want to be a distraction. He told me he didn’t feel that way.”
Roy used slightly different language.
“He didn’t want to be a burden for the team,” the head coach said of Martin. “And I said, ‘You’re not.’ ”
Though it is Lou Lamoriello who runs personnel, Martin would not have come back if not for Roy’s endorsement.
The tryout contract he signed in camp came with no promises, and even now everybody involved knows that Martin is not here to play 82 games, but since the start of training camp, the head coach has been nothing short of emphatic in saying — repeatedly — how valuable it is to have Martin around.
“A: Leadership. B: He’s smart on the ice,” Roy said Monday. “I think when I say leadership, he really helps [Oliver Wahlstrom] and Kyle [MacLean] a lot and he’s smart on the ice. The goal that we scored in Ottawa, he’s the one that created that forecheck and opened up Wally for that shot. [The New Jersey] game, same thing. He does a lot of good things and accepts his role.”
Even as Martin played in three consecutive games heading into Thursday’s match against the Canucks, that role is limited.
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Martin is averaging just 7:46 of ice and took just two shifts in the third period in Edmonton on Tuesday, which is not an abnormal occurrence.
Once Mathew Barzal and Anthony Duclair are off LTIR, it’s unclear whether Martin will be a casualty of the ensuing salary cap crunch.
He understood, upon agreeing to this, exactly what he was walking into, right down to being used as an extra defenseman in practice when not slated to play the next game.
“First you gotta, in some ways, check your ego at the door, right?” Martin said. “Understand that there is roles throughout this entire locker room. Just cause my role is different this year doesn’t mean it’s not important. You gotta adapt to that and understand that, come in every day.
“The hardest part in this type of thing, you could go long stretches without playing. And staying ready to play, really at any point in time, cause you don’t know when somebody is gonna get sick or injured. It takes a lot of extra work after practice. Generally the forwards who are playing are gonna go with their lines and you’re not getting reps [so] playing ‘D’ in practice has been nice because you stay in the rotation, you stay in the rhythm, you get the conditioning and the reps.
“So it’s really just staying on top of that, not letting that slip and feeling like, ‘Oh, I’m not playing tonight. Might not play for a month or whatever.’ You just gotta stay ready. That’s probably the hardest part in general. But I think I’ve done a few jobs.”
