Just when the Islanders thought it was over, injuries pulled them back.
This time it was Alexander Romanov. One of two uninjured defensemen in the Opening Day lineup, he missed Saturday’s 5-2 loss to the Flames at UBS Arena, but was called up by the Islanders with a lower-body injury. Multiplied by He is daily.
Sebastian Aho was in the lineup alongside Noah Dobson and skated 18 minutes, 23 seconds in his first game since before the All-Star hiatus.
At 15:16 of the second, Mackenzie Weegar was on the ice for a goal when Walker Duerr missed a shot and Weegar gained an advantage on a one-time puck-in, making it a minus-1 point.
“I thought he was OK,” coach Patrick Roy said of Aho. “But that third goal was just unlucky for him.
“Could he be faster in the passing lane? Probably yes. But he’s out of the lineup and back in and it’s not that easy sometimes. But he’s a great kid, he works hard and we He also showed a lot of effort in practice. We felt he was a good fit to be in the lineup to play against Romy.”
The last thing the Islanders wanted was for Romanoff or Dobson to go down as soon as Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock returned. With all four players in the lineup (a rarity this season), the Islanders have two top pairs that can be deployed comfortably against any line. Without that, there will be holes in their defense.
Semyon Varlamov reached a milestone on Saturday, playing in his 600th career game.
However, in his first start since January 27, he allowed three points on 22 shots, including a wrist shot that Wieger should have stopped after rushing 3:47 into the game. was.
“He just beat me on the far side,” Varlamov said. “Low blocker. You’ll have to watch the replay.”
Roy, who himself appeared in the net more than 1,000 times as a player, refused to shift the blame to the netminder.
“You’ll never hear me say anything negative about a goaltender,” Roy said. “They’ve been very good to us all year. And Varley made the saves that he had to make at some point. Does he want his first one back? That’s for him to decide. But on my side, I’m always behind the goalie.”
Roy left open the possibility of keeping Pierre Engvall on the top line after testing Bo Horvat with Mathieu Barzal and Pierre Envall in the third period.
“I need to know, and sometimes I want to try,” he said. “We thought having Engvall with Bo and Virgie would add a little more speed to that line.”
