Overhauled Islanders leadership group says so much about new direction

SAN JOSE, Calif.— For years on end, the question hanging over the Islanders was when they would change their core, a process that properly began two seasons ago, when Brock Nelson was shipped to Colorado. It’s not over by any stretch, but you can see the difference across the dressing room, starting with the leadership group.

Bo Horvat, the franchise’s first big acquisition who wasn’t involved in either conference final run earlier this decade, is the captain.Matthew Schaefer and Brayden Schenn are both wearing letters, having started their time with the Islanders a year ago. That change Islanders fans spent years begging for? Here it is. “I mean yes, it does [feel different],” Casey Cizikas told The Post after Tuesday’s practice at the SAP Center.

“… The business we’re in, it happens all the time.I’ve been here long enough, I’ve had to say bye to a lot of friends I’ve made over my career.

It’s just that kind of next man up mentality — I know you say it all the time, but you battle with the group you have in here.That’s the mentality. “It sucks seeing guys go that you’ve built relationships with over so many years.

At the end of the day, it’s who’s in this dressing room that you’re going to war with every single night.” Seventeen games into the season, you can see the effects of change playing out in real time. The Islanders know the style of play that can get them winning results, having employed it to good effect over the season’s first month.It’s now about executing it with more regularity, while — they hope — integrating Mathew Barzal, Matias Maccelli and Ryan Pulock back into the lineup, and under the pressure that a losing streak, which hit four games after Monday’s overtime loss to the Sharks, brings. You could call it growing pains, or just the normal ups and downs of a season.

But it all has a different tone than the Islanders of a few seasons ago. Horvat, Schenn and Schaefer all frequently ...