Islanders shorten their blue line with Alexander Romanov still sidelined

Lou Lamoriello said Saturday that Alexander Romanov — who missed that night’s eventual loss to the Panthers — “should be back in the next game without question.”The Islanders’ best-laid plans, apparently, went to waste.Romanov missed a second straight game with an upper-body injury — which Lamoriello said was not a concussion after the defenseman appeared to hit his head on an open-ice hit from Kurtis MacDermid on Friday night — with the Islanders offering no other updates beyond continuing to call him day-to-day.Coach Patrick Roy said there had been no setback in the defenseman’s recovery.Being without him in Tuesday’s 2-1 loss to Anaheim meant the Islanders stuck with Mike Reilly and Noah Dobson as the top defense pair, with Dennis Cholowski continuing to partner Scott Mayfield on the bottom pair.That was, at least, what it looked like on paper.

With Roy only trusting Cholowski enough to give him 7:01 of ice, there was a fair amount of moving around, with the entire top four recording over 20 minutes and Mayfield clocking in at 16:17.Romanov’s start to the season had quietly been a bright spot for the Islanders.Playing a heavy minutes load, the Russian was putting up strong numbers on the top pair with Dobson.

Friday night, when he recovered from MacDermid’s hit by trucking Jack Hughes and putting up an assist, was perhaps his best game of the season so far.The 24-year-old has also been extremely durable, playing 76 and 81 games in each of the last two seasons, respectively.Roy said Pierre Engvall — who took two penalties and got 10:16 of ice — did not play enough to comment on his performance.As for Hudson Fasching, who was also on the fourth line but played just 7:56, there was no such concern.“I thought he was good,” Roy said.

“I thought he played well.He did what we were asking for.”The Islanders used nine different forward line combinations Tuesday, according to Natural Stat Trick, with Roy going to the blender multiple...