Islanders defensive issues reinforced in season-opening loss to Maple Leafs

TORONTO — The Islanders, as close to a whole product as they can get while Mat Barzal is hurt, looked like a better, faster, more competitive team Wednesday night than they had in a preseason that verged on alarming. Just not better, faster or competitive enough. For the fifth time in six years, the Islanders started their season with a defeat, falling to the Maple Leafs 2-1, opening 2026-27 with a performance that reinforced their defensive issues. It wasn’t all bad at Scotiabank Arena.But the good for the Islanders was almost exclusively limited to when Matthew Schaefer was on the ice, and that is a problem anyone could have predicted. Schaefer, who was part of the headline bill against this year’s No.

1 overall pick Gavin McKenna, picked up right where he left off last season, his adjustment to the right side looking far more seamless than McKenna’s to the NHL. Adam Pelech and Schaefer aside, though, the other two defense pairs looked like works in progress at best. As was the case in preseason, the Alexander Romanov-Ryan Pulock pair was consistently hemmed in.Logan Stanley, making his Islanders debut alongside Tony DeAngelo, looked like he was still getting his bearings — and was victimized on the Leafs’ opening goal, when Colton Sissons beat him to Nick Paul’s feed for a successful redirection. Five minutes after Sissons opened the scoring, the Leafs doubled their lead on the power play.

Morgan Rielly batted the puck to keep it in off Ryan Pulock’s clearing attempt and Easton Cowan cleaned up the garbage on the ensuing blast from Jack Roslovic. As for Victor Eklund, Leafs coach Jim Hiller threw a huge test at the young Swede right away, matching Auston Matthews’ line against the rookie’s trio that included JG Pageau and Emil Heineman. That made for an underwhelming night for Eklund, though he was far from the only one. The second line was barely noticeable aside from Cal Ritchie’s struggles, and by late in the second period, Pe...