"I wanted to be back here but with COVID and the cap situation, was it going to go down, stay the same or go up, no one really knew what was going on at the time," Martin said Wednesday. "My goal was to stay and obviously very happy that we were able to work that out. I'm excited to move forward with this group. I think we have a great opportunity to build off of last season and it all starts tomorrow night."
The 31-year-old forward scored eight points (five goals, three assists) in 53 games with the Islanders last season and had six points (five goals, one assist) in 22 postseason games.
Selected by New York in the fifth round (No. 148) of the 2008 NHL Draft, Martin has 131 points (61 goals, 70 assists) in 692 regular season games with the Islanders and Toronto Maple Leafs and 10 points (six goals, four assists) in 55 Stanley Cup Playoff games.
"Obviously, Matt has a lot of the intangibles," Islanders coach Barry Trotz said on Dec. 31. "The type of player that he is, everybody's well aware of that, but he's a good piece of the culture on the island. I think you saw in the playoffs how valuable Matt is on our team from a standpoint of bringing the physical attributes. He's a guy that I've had to move around and moved up in the lineup a few times. He can play in different situations. He's just a real good, reliable pro. I think he's finding the back of the net a little bit more. I think he feels that he's a big part of what we do."
