Islanders Announce 2024-25 Preseason Schedule

Is it October yet? The New York Islanders have announced their 2024-25 preseason schedule.

The games and times are:

9/22 @ NJD, 7 p.m

9/24 @ NYR, 7 p.m

9/26 @ PHI, 7 p.m

9/27 vs NJD, 7 p.m

9/30 vs PHI, 7 p.m

10/04 vs NYR, 7 p.m

The Islanders will begin with all their games on the road before sticking at home for the back half of the preseason. The advantage of that could be significant, with more time devoted to the main group sticking around for the season. It will be the first full season under Patrick Roy’s hand as coach, and it begins with an opportunity to get even more time for practices at home without having to travel even short distances to Philadelphia or New Jersey after September 26th.

This schedule likely means training camp will start about a week before the first game. Around September 15th, the Islanders will kick off training camp. That would be 90 days until training camp. 

The NHL Draft was held on June 28th, 2023, last year, and it’s on the exact same day this year. The NHL released the entire regular-season schedule on June 27th last year, so you should also keep an eye on that. It wouldn’t be shocking to see the NHL try and drum up attention ahead of the draft, like last season.

The preseason itself should be exciting in that the Islanders get a look at Sheldon Keefe as the New Jersey Devils’ new coach while also returning to the building where they clinched a playoff berth last season. They’ll also take on the Philadelphia Flyers, who, much like Icarus, flew too close to the sun, or in this case, the playoffs, and rapidly descended to their demise last season.

Finally, the Islanders will also take on the New York Rangers, the team they had spirited battles with at the end of last season, which raised everybody’s hopes for a potential playoff matchup that never happened. 

It’ll be a good sextet of games for the Islanders, who will boast new addition Maxim Tsyplakov for at least a couple of those games, one would assume. 

The news is starting and will only pick up steam from here. Once again, is it October yet?