To get to the heart of Matt Martin, the heart and soul of the Islanders for every minute of his seven seasons with the team, you need to know what he’s thinking about as he plays his first game against his old team on Sunday in Barclays Center.
“Some guys might want their old teams to fail, I guess,” he told Newsday in a phone conversation from Montreal, where his Leafs faced the Canadiens on Saturday before flying down to New York for Sunday’s emotional return. “I’m not that way. These guys are all my friends still, I want to see them succeed in the worst way.