Breaking down the data to identify the Islanders' top skaters

EDMONTON, Alberta — Connor McDavid sets a high bar in the NHL when it comes to skating ability and speed. Mathew Barzal gets another chance to compare his elite skills to the Oilers’ three-time Hart Trophy winner as the NHL’s MVP on Thursday night at Rogers Place.

The eye test says Barzal and rookie defenseman Matthew Schaefer are the Islanders’ top skaters and the analytics back that up, to a certain point.

Barzal, who suffered a season-ending left kneecap injury that required surgery last Feb. 1, is actually 10th on the Islanders with a maximum skating speed of 22.43 mph, according to advanced statistics kept by NHL Edge. But he’s second on the team in bursts of at least 22 mph with nine behind Schaefer’s 22 and first with 164 bursts of at least 20 mph, with Schaefer second with 142.

Right wing Emil Heineman currently has the Islanders’ maximum skating speed this season at 23.40 mph. Schaefer's maximum skating speed is 22.94, which is second.

Since NHL Edge started keeping these skating statistics in 2021-22, Barzal has logged the team’s top speed once, at 23.67 mph in 2022-23, and has twice been second.

To be fair, Barzal is just happy to still be able to skate as fast as he can after last season’s injury scare.

“There was a lot of concern,” Barzal told Newsday. “You’re off the ice for six months. I still don’t feel like I really got a full summer of training. I got probably a month. I had to rebuild my whole leg pretty much, the muscle. I don’t necessarily feel as fast in certain ways. I’ve got to be a little tighter on my edges. But it’s nice to know, with the limited time that I had, that I can get back to where I am now.

“At the start of the season, there was a ton of ache. My bone getting used to weight bearing and pressure. Now, I’m not dealing with that as much. It’s very limited now.”

McDavid has clocked the NHL’s maximum skating speed this season at 24.61 mph and had 90 bursts of 22 mph or more and 310 bursts of 20 mph or more, both first in the league, according to NHL Edge.

The Islanders, who are on a seven-game road trip that’s started 1-1-1, do not have a skater in the NHL’s top 10.

But back on Jan. 25, 2020, Barzal topped McDavid — then a three-time defending champion — in the fastest skater event at the NHL Skills Competition as part of its all-star weekend in St. Louis. Barzal completed his lap in 13.175 seconds while McDavid was clocked at 13.215 seconds.

Of course, on Feb. 2, 2024, in Toronto, McDavid won the event for a fourth time with a lap of 13.408 seconds while Barzal finished second at 13.519 seconds.

Barzal said he’s tried to self-analyze why he can skate the way he can, when most in the NHL cannot.

“I thought about it before, it’s just the actual makeup of your legs is the reason the way you skate,” Barzal said. “Growing up with kids that did power skating all summer and they came back the next season and they had the same stride. So I think whatever you’re given and whatever your stride is, that’s the way you’re going to skate.

“I’m fairly bow-legged and I would assume that most guys in this room are very bow-legged. If you look at Schaef, he’s extremely bow-legged. A lot of the good skaters tend to be. Pretty early on, I was a pretty good skater. That was always my thing growing up.”

Schaefer, 10 years younger than Barzal at age 18, is not quite as analytical as his older teammate when it comes to dissecting his skating skills. Like Barzal, though, Schaefer just knows what he’s able to do on skates came naturally.

“I didn’t do much power skating or anything really growing up,” Schaefer told Newsday. “I wasn’t even really on the ice that much, either. I loved roller blading. I loved doing things.

“I watched my brother [Johnathon, now 27] play in the Ontario Hockey League growing up, seeing him and other guys skate. It wasn’t like I was very dialed into everyone skating, I just watched a game and be a kid and eat candy. I feel like I just picked up on stuff a little bit quicker.”

However Barzal and Schaefer do what they do, their teammates definitely notice. Anders Lee said there are times during a game when he’ll look up at the scoreboard to see the skating speeds. He is the opposite type of hockey player, a prototypical power forward whose success rests on how strong he positions himself around the opponent’s crease.

“We talk about it every once in a while,” Lee told Newsday. “We would trade some [skills] back and forth at times. I didn’t make the league on my skating but I would love to have a touch of that every once in a while.”