Isles Day to Day: Open Practice

New York Islanders practice looked a little different on Sunday morning, as the team took the ice at UBS Arena for an open practice in front of Season Ticket Members and various community groups.

While there was a festive atmosphere in the stands, it was all-business on the ice, with the Isles working on various battle drills and one-on-ones.

"The fans are important, and they're very important to us," Head Coach Patrick Roy said. "[The players] wanted to have a good practice for them, and I thought it was fun for them to have a bit of a taste of how we practice, how we run the practice, what we do and they deserve that. They're there every night. They're supporting us every night."

SHOOTOUT FINISH:

While work was the priority, the Isles ended the open practice with a shootout to give a fans a bit of a show. Mathew Barzal, Alexander Romanov and Brock Nelson score for the white group, sending the blue group to skate the length of the ice several times. Barzal said Romanov also won the team's shootout contest a week prior, so the Russian defenseman might be a sneaky shootout ace.

"That was just nice to bring some energy in the building for practice," Barzal siad. "It's cool to kind of give them an inside look on what we do every day. They probably appreciate how hard we work out there, day in, day out, so it was fun having them out here and trying to put on a good practice."

SOROKIN SKATES FOR SECOND STRAIGHT PRACTICE:

Ilya Sorokin practiced with the team for a second straight day. He and Semyon Varlamov were the only two goalies on the ice for practice.

"It's a good sign," Roy said. "We'll take it day by day, and we'll see how it goes, but they both looked really good at today's practice."