The NY Islanders drop a tough one in the season opener, as special teams continue to be an issue

After a summer of change, the NY Islanders managed to drop their season opener, committing many of the same mistakes as last season, falling 4-3 to the Pittsburgh Penguins

A main emphasis heading into this season was special teams. Patrick Roy had the power play and short-handed units working earlier into training camp than he typically would, but the work put in didn't equate to on-ice success tonight. The Isles allowed goals on each of the Penguins' first two power plays, but managed to kill the next three.

The Isles' power play went 0-3 on the night, but the chances were there. A solid performance out of Tristan Jarry, who seems to own the Islanders, kept the Isles off the score sheet on the man-advantage.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the game was Matthew Schaefer. Recording his first career point, assisting Jonathan Drouin's first as an Islander, opened up the scoring and knotted the game at two, making him the youngest defenseman to record a point in his NHL debut.

After pushing to even the score up in the dying moments of the third, Roy elected to put Schaefer on the ice for the 6-on-5, replacing Tony DeAngelo, who had been on the ice for over two minutes.

"I thought he was really good," Roy said postgame. "He was good at the end, he was throwing pucks at the net. I thought he seems very comfortable, very confident out there, so I'm very pleased with him."

The Islanders looked like a much faster, more uptempo team than they had all of last season, but the special teams let them down again. If they're going to improve on last season's point total, that needs to be turned around.