ELMONT, NY — Matt Martin’s head was down, the winger still unlacing his skates when reporters arrived at his stall. A game puck, perhaps one of the final mementos from the New York Islanders season, and possibly the last from Martin’s near-1,000-game NHL career, sat on a shelf behind him.
If Tuesday night’s game at UBS Arena was Martin’s last in the NHL, it embodied the Islanders’ 2024–25 season. New York fell 3-1 to the conference-leading Washington Capitals following a lackluster first two periods, in which they kept pace with the Capitals but trailed by two goals. After Jean-Gabriel Pageau pulled the Islanders within one late in the third period, Dylan Strome completed his hat trick and put the Islanders’ penultimate game to bed into the empty net.
It may have been typical Islanders hockey — boring, low-scoring, and with little to cheer about, save for a few minutes of third-period excitement and a comeback that fell short — but that didn’t matter to the Islanders nor their fans. Their playoff hopes were long dead. One of their homegrown players was preparing to say goodbye to the game.
It had been a tough day for Martin. He had spoken about this following the Islanders’ morning skate. He’d been getting texts all day, including one from his former coach, Jack Capuano.
“A lot of emotion,” said Martin. “I didn’t know when it would hit. Didn’t know if it would hit.”
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There might not be a player who embodies “Islanders hockey” more than Martin. He spent 853 of his 985 NHL games with the Islanders. Over that span, he’s collected 81 goals and 178 points. The best measure of his impact was the grit inside his 6-foot-3, 215-pound frame, and the 1,168 penalty minutes he amassed. He was beloved by fans, who chanted his name — “MATTY MARTIN!” — sporadically at UBS Arena on Tuesday night.
Martin spent the first seven years of his career on Long Island. After a two-year stint with the Toronto Maple Leafs, he returned to New York in 2018 in a trade for Eamon McAdam. He’s remained in the Islanders’ blue and orange since.
As loyal as he was to the club, and the club was to him, there comes an expiration date for every professional athlete. Martin, 35, has two assists and 10 penalty minutes in 30 games this season, as he nears the end of the one-year contract he signed in late October.
“It was not an easy year for him,” Islanders head coach Patrick Roy said. “There were moments I wish I could put him on the ice, but he understood what was going on.”
For one final game, the club gave him a proper send-off. Martin wore an “A” courtesy of alternate captain Kyle Palmieri. In warmups, he skated over to his family behind the corner glass to greet them from the ice for the final time. The Islanders’ fourth line, consisting of Martin, Kyle MacLean, and Marc Gatcomb, got the start. The Islanders’ faithful roared as Martin’s name was announced.
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Anthony Beauvillier spent five seasons as Martin’s teammate with the Islanders. On Tuesday, he got the start against Martin’s line. Before the opening face-off, Beauvillier made a simple request.
“He asked me if I wanted to go,” Martin said. “He’s a scrappy little guy. You got to be careful with him.”
Beauvillier and Martin were both members of the 2019–20 and 2020–21 Islanders. Those two seasons were the club’s most successful playoff runs since their 1980s dynasty, as they appeared in back-to-back Conference Finals, falling both times to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Those runs were the best of times and the worst of times. There were electric moments, like Beauvillier’s overtime winner in Game 6 of the 2021 Stanley Cup semifinals that closed out the Islanders’ near-half-century chapter at the Nassau Coliseum. There was also the heartbreak of losing to Tampa Bay in Game 7, 1-0 on a shorthanded goal.
Last spring, in Game 1 against the Carolina Hurricanes, Martin became the 17th skater in Islanders history to play in 80 playoff games. Losing that seventh game in 2021 was the most emotional he’d ever been, he said.
“We had great teams those years,” he said. “It was such a good run, even the bubble, being away from your family for two and a half months, but made us so close as a team, and while it was tough in the moment, it’s something you look back on and can find appreciation for.”
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The final buzzer had sounded, and after each Capitals player on the ice shook hands with Martin, and the Islanders had given him space to wave to the crowd, who cheered back, they embraced as a group, the same way they might after a hard-fought overtime or playoff series win.
“The way the fans react and the way they cheer for him,” Roy began, “It was so nice of them to do that. He played hard for this organization and he deserved every minute of that.
“I have only positive things to say. I’ve been here for a year and a half now. He’s been a classy person, a great teammate, and a person that is very passionate about the game.”
It was fitting that his home send-off came against Washington. Before the Islanders faced Tampa Bay in their 2020 and 2021 runs, the Capitals were their biggest foe. New York fell to them in 2015 — Martin’s second-ever playoff series. They beat the Capitals in 2020, en route to the final four.
The Islanders surrounded Martin, celebrating not a game-winning goal, but the career of an Islander who ranked eighth all-time among franchise games played.
The Islanders are a tight-knit group. Martin hadn’t expected the group hug, but it was only appropriate for his second family. Martin, like many Islanders players, had grown up on Long Island. He was 20 years old when he made his NHL debut in the 2009–10 season. Now, he’s one of the few remaining members of a generation of players gone by, following the departures of longtime Islanders Brock Nelson, Josh Bailey, and Cal Clutterbuck — Martin’s former linemate.
“So many guys in here,” Martin said. “We started in this league together, been through a lot together, watched them all get married, their families grow up. It’s a special team, special group.”
The hug disbanded. After another quick wave and a team salute, Martin was announced as the game’s first star. Then, it was back to the standard end-of-season protocol: Jerseys Off Our Backs night.
One of the reasons Martin felt that he and Long Island had connected was because of his charity work. From the day he arrived, he was told about how important it was to get involved in the community.
He founded the Matt Martin Foundation and the Matt Martin Hockey Academy. Together, his foundations run charity poker tournaments and hockey camps.
“The fans have always supported everything I’ve done,” Martin said. “From a charity standpoint especially, a lot of the same faces every year and help me raise money for some good causes.”
It was fitting that, in what is likely to be his final home game, and for the third time in his career, Martin was announced as the Islanders’ nominee for the 2025 King Clancy Memorial Trophy, awarded annually to “the player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution in his community.”
That is certainly who Martin is. He leaves behind a legacy of community service and longevity that few players on Long Island can top, embracing what it meant to be an Islander, on and off the ice.
