Matthew Barzal Is Kinda Good

There have been few moves in the tenure of Islanders General Manager Garth Snow that have looked really, really good for the Islanders. One of them was trading Griffin Reinhart to the Edmonton Oilers for a 2015 first-round draft pick, 16th overall. Now Reinhart is no longer with the Oilers, he's playing in the minors for the Vegas Golden Knights, and he has just two points in 39 games in the NHL. Meanwhile, the 16th overall pick the Islanders had in the 2015 draft, they used it to select center Matthew Barzal. Barzal, to this point, has 44 points on the year, which leads all rookies in scoring, coming off his five point performance on Saturday against the Rangers.

His stat line against the Rangers was two goals in three assists in a 7-2 win over the Rangers at MSG Saturday. it makes the 2nd time this year he's posted a five point game, his other one coming November 5th in a 6-4 win over the Colorado Avalanche (he had five assists in that game). It's kind of a big deal that Barzal has done that twice already this season. Think about some of these interesting facts (provided by NBC Sports). Barzal is the only player in the NHL this season that has at least two five point games. The rest of the NHL has combined for seven. Since 2005-06, there have been thirteen players that have had multiple five point games in a season. Barzal has a chance to join Evgeni Malkin (four in 2011-12), Sidney Crosby (three in 2009-10) and Alex Ovechkin (three in 2007-08) as the only guys to have more then two of those games in a season. Oh yeah, and Barzal is one of only two Islanders rookies to record two five point games in their rookie season, the other one being Brian Trottier back in 1975-76.

So what does this all mean? Well it means that this Barzal kid is pretty good. To date, he has 15 goals and 29 assists, which is good for 44 points. The point totals are most among rookies in the NHL and he's 3rd on the Islanders in scoring, behind Josh Bailey and John Tavares. Both Bailey and Tavares are slated, again as of now, to hit the free agent market at the end of this season. Both of those guys are extremely valuable to the success of the Islanders. So too is Barzal with the way he's played this year. He's got the talent to really be a big star in this league. Some of the moves that this kid can make with the puck on his stick, and when he's going at full flight, are really something to watch.

The Islanders have had a few rookies since the turn of the century. Trent Hunter finished 3rd in Calder voting in 2004 and Michael Grabner finished 3rd in 2011 voting. No Islander has won the award since Bryan Berard in 1997. Barzal has a legitimate chance to walk away with the Calder this year, at the pace he's been playing this season. He's also a reason why the Islanders are, despite having that slide earlier in the year, that they are hanging around the playoff race right now. They sit a point back from the Wild Card spot as of this writing.

There's no other way around it, Barzal is kinda good.