CALGARY, Alberta — The Islanders finally took the first big step toward getting whole again Tuesday as Alexander Romanov returned from an upper-body injury to play his first game in more than two weeks against the Flames.
Romanov had been building toward a return from an upper-body injury throughout this five-game trip, joining the team for practice in Edmonton last week in a non-contact jersey and shedding it in recent days.
While the Islanders are still waiting for Mat Barzal, Anthony Duclair, Adam Pelech and Mike Reilly — none of whom have begun skating as yet — Romanov, who rejoined the top defensive pair with Noah Dobson, is arguably the most important piece of the group.
The Russian skated 21:04 in the 2-1 shootout loss to the Flames, recording a team-high eight hits along with a pair of shots on net.
“He looked great,” Dobson said. “Did well. It’s not easy being out for an extended period of time. Coming back, I thought he looked good, made plays. It was nice to have him back.”
As a domino effect of Romanov coming back in, Isaiah George was bumped down to the second pair with Ryan Pulock. Scott Mayfield went to the third pair with Dennis Cholowski, while Grant Hutton came out of the lineup as a healthy scratch.
Prior to missing 10 of 11 games heading into Tuesday, Romanov had taken up the mantle as the Islanders’ best defensive defenseman, averaging 21:37 of ice and displaying continued growth after a strong 2023-24 campaign.
While George’s emergence changed the equation on the Islanders blue line, getting back a minutes-eater in Romanov — who is also on the top penalty-kill unit — is a sigh of relief for a team that spent more than two weeks holding its defense corps together with duct tape and glue.
Calgary’s Matt Coronato, a native of Greenlawn, N.Y., said the game against the Islanders was circled on the calendar after he grew up rooting for the team.
“My favorite [player] was Nick Leddy, actually,” the 22-year-old Coronato said, making everyone else in the room feel quite old. “Used to play D when I was little, so I always loved his skating.”
Coronato has played recently on the Flames top line along with Mikael Backlund and Blake Coleman, scoring five goals with two assists so far this season.
“He still has a lot of swagger offensively with the puck, but I think now with where we’re using him, he can impact things within the game,” Flames coach Ryan Huska said. “Key times of the game, Mikael and Blake or on the ice, so that means he’s out there, but it’s not just, ‘He’s on that line, let’s keep him there.’ He’s out there because he’s done a good job and he’s earned that extra bit of ice time.”
Roy said that “everything went well” with Reilly’s heart procedure. The defenseman is out indefinitely after a heart issue was discovered during concussion testing.
