Brendan Burke has made a seamless transition to Isles’ booth

CALGARY, Alberta — Brendan Burke is nearing the end of his second season as the Islanders’ TV play-by-play man, and so far so good when it comes to the team’s demanding fans.

The still-only-33-year-old announcer was an unknown when he was hired to succeed Howie Rose in 2016, but fans seemed to take to him quickly, just as he has taken to the job himself.

How has it matched his expectations coming in?

“I don’t even know what my expectations were,” he said. “I think it was just the proverbial dream job and it was: Now you have it, and now you get to figure out what it’s like. Here we are coming down the backstretch of Year Two and you still wake up and pinch yourself sometimes that this is actually where you are.”

Burke knew he was replacing a fixture in Rose and that he would face scrutiny because of his young age and low profile. So he tried to make the transition as seamless as possible.

“I think my goal when I came in was to be a non-story, was to have it be that no one cares that I’m the new guy; they just want to enjoy Islanders hockey,” he said. “My approach was: Act like you’ve always been here and just kind of slide right in and make it not awkward for someone coming in and listening and wondering: ‘Who’s this guy?’

“I think that’s gone well. People have very quickly gone from thinking it was strange to hear my voice to thinking it’s strange when we flash something back that’s got Howie on it. So that was my biggest goal coming in, and it feels like that’s going well.”

Burke is held in high regard nationally, as evidenced by NBC having him call the entire Oilers-Sharks series in the first round of the playoffs last season, then the first two games of the Ducks-Oilers second-round series.

Last season he missed several Islanders games, two for the birth of his second child and others because NBC carried them. This season, he has not missed any, because when NBC took one from MSG, it tabbed Burke for play-by-play.

“It’s obviously been an interesting time, with last year having a coaching change, the first season with this staff and new guys coming in and out,” he said. “There’s always been a big story. The emergence of Mathew Barzal has made it fun to watch.

“I guess it’s been a team where you don’t really know what to expect on a game-to-game basis, but that keeps it fun for me.”

Heat of the postgame moment for Weight

Doug Weight was a feisty, emotional player, and so he has been in the 14 months he has coached the Islanders, a trait that sometimes emerges on camera after difficult losses.

Weight had little patience for questions after defeats in overtime to the Canucks and in a shootout to the Oilers during this Western Canada swing, including a brief, testy exchange with MSG’s Shannon Hogan after the Oilers game.

By the next day in Banff, Weight had cooled off and was back to emphasizing the positive.

“I’m sorry I can’t do it right after a game,” he said. “I feel bad for Shannon having to deal with me, but I have not mastered that yet.”

Weight said that given his personality, he does not expect he ever will learn to be relaxed when being interviewed immediately after a loss.

“I just have trouble,” he said. “I’m into the game and you get disappointed and competitive. I don’t like losing, and I don’t like losing the same way, where I watched a flipping puck go off a stick and off the head [of the goalie] behind the goal line. It’s disappointing. We played such a good game. It gets to you. I don’t think I’ll get that much better at it.

“I don’t think it’s an issue, as long as I apologize to Shannon every time she comes on the plane. But no, I’m not worried about that. I don’t think it’s wrong to acknowledge it. I don’t want to look like I can’t control myself. But it’s tough 30 seconds after a game, when you’re frustrated and your team’s frustrated. That’s a tough thing.”

McDavid a blur

Like everyone else watching Thursday, Weight was wowed by the Oilers’ Connor McDavid, who had nine shots on goal, scored the Oilers’ only goal in regulation time, hit the post on a penalty shot in overtime and scored the game-winner in the shootout.

“That speed is one of a kind, it really is,” Weight said. “When you see him live, and he jumps in the hole [between defenders], there’s no one in our game who has ever done that at that pace, the ability to spaghetti the puck around at that speed.

“I wasn’t a fast player, but I could do everything at my top speed with the puck. That’s the only reason I could play. He’s about 30 miles an hour faster than I am and he can do everything at top speed with the puck. It’s pretty incredible.”

Barzal rounding out his game

Mathew Barzal’s offensive game is built on puck control and creativity, but the rookie said over the past month or so the NHL game is starting to slow down for him, which has helped him become a more rounded player.

“I think actually in the last 10 games or so my complete game has been the best it has been so far this season, just back-checking, trying to steal more pucks, that kind of stuff,” he said. “The coaches want me to be one of the top offensive guys but also reliable on defense, and I’m trying to do that lately.”

Isles a Canadian club

The Islanders’ long trip to Western Canada might seem distant and somewhat exotic to their fans back home, but for many players it is a homecoming.

Their roster is among the most Canadian in the NHL, with many Western Canadians in the group.

Of the 19 players who appeared in Thursday’s game in Edmonton, 14 were born in Canada — eight in Western Canada — four in the United States and one in Europe.

And that one, goalie Christopher Gibson, moved to Canada from Finland when he was 15 and has lived here since.

Ancient history

The Flames and Islanders are not exactly traditional rivals, but their histories are tied.

One of the motivations behind the NHL granting the Islanders franchise was to keep the WHA’s New York franchise from finding a home at the new Nassau Coliseum.

To make sure the league maintained an even number of teams, the NHL also granted a franchise to Atlanta. Both teams began play in 1972-73.

The Islanders still are in the area, even if they have moved their games to Brooklyn (for now). The Flames moved to Calgary in 1980.

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.