The Islanders opened their home schedule Saturday night with a 6-0 win over the Devils, and the loudest ovation at UBS Arena came before the puck dropped. It went to Dominick Critelli of Floral Park, a 105-year-old Army veteran of the Second World War, who stood at center ice with his saxophone and played The Star-Spangled Banner for a capacity crowd. When he finished, he took off his hat and held it out to the stands while the building stood and roared.

He wore a custom Islanders jersey for the occasion, presented by franchise legend Butch Goring, with a number no player will ever claim: 105.

An encore ten months in the making

This was not his first time silencing the arena. Last December 27, with 17,255 fans packed in for Islanders against Rangers, the team invited Critelli, then 104, to play the anthem. A rivalry crowd that agrees on nothing agreed on him. The performance ended in a standing ovation and chants of USA, and clips of it traveled far beyond Long Island. That night his jersey read 104.

The Islanders decided the saxophone should come back for opening night, and the jersey number ticked up by one. If the pattern holds, there is a 106 waiting next fall.

The team honored him as the game's featured veteran, and the roster then spent the evening making sure the night stayed perfect. Ilya Sorokin stopped all 36 shots he faced for a shutout, six different Islanders scored, and a home opener that began with a 105-year-old setting the standard ended with the home team meeting it.

Ninety-two years with the same instrument

Critelli was born in Italy in 1921 and came to the United States as an eight-year-old. He picked up the saxophone at around 13, which means the instrument he carried to center ice has been part of his life for more than nine decades. By every account he still practices daily, which is how a man his age walks into an NHL arena and delivers the anthem like it is just another afternoon in the living room.

Then there is the part of his story that explains why the building stands before he plays a note. Critelli served as an Army staff sergeant in the Second World War and spent 151 days in combat in Europe, fighting through some of the most brutal stretches of the war, including the Battle of the Bulge. His decorations include the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with three bronze service stars, the American Theater Medal, the World War II Victory Medal and the Good Conduct Medal.

Fewer than one percent of the sixteen million Americans who served in that war are still alive. The number who can stand in front of 17,000 people and play a flawless anthem on a saxophone is, as far as anyone knows, exactly one, and he lives in Floral Park.

A Nassau County story, start to finish

There is something fitting about where this keeps happening. UBS Arena sits in Elmont, a few minutes down the road from Critelli's home in Floral Park. The man who played the anthem at the home opener did not fly in for the occasion. He is a neighbor, the kind of person Islanders fans might pass at the deli counter or the pharmacy without knowing they were standing next to the owner of the most famous saxophone in Nassau County.

The Islanders have leaned into local identity since moving to Elmont in 2021, and nothing they have staged lands quite like this. A team can buy fireworks and light shows. It cannot manufacture a 105-year-old combat veteran from the next town over who has been playing the same instrument since Franklin Roosevelt's first term, and who treats the anthem not as a performance but as a thank-you note to the country that took him in as a child.

The season ahead will bring the usual run of celebrity anthem singers and pregame productions to Elmont. None of them will get the reception Critelli got on Saturday, because the crowd was not just applauding the music. It was applauding 151 days of combat, 92 years of practice, and the plain stubborn joy of a man who, at 105, is still saying yes when someone asks him to play.

Here is to number 106.