The Islanders thought on Saturday that they would at least be playing with two-thirds of their usual defense corps.
Turns out, even that was too much a luxury.
Alexander Romanov joined Mike Reilly and Adam Pelech as being sidelined against the Rangers with an upper-body injury, with his status being described as day-to-day.
So it was Samuel Bolduc, Grant Hutton and Dennis Cholowski replacing the trio, with the Islanders having just two natural lefties of the six D-men in their lineup at Madison Square Garden.
It is an injury nightmare reminiscent of three years ago, when a COVID-19 outbreak forced the Islanders to open up UBS Arena with a similarly depleted blue line.
In a match also against the Rangers on Nov. 24, 2021, the Islanders were memorably down five of their six regular blue-liners, playing a lineup that included Robin Salo, Sebastian Aho, Paul LaDue, Thomas Hickey and Hutton — none of whom had played on that season’s opening night — in a 4-1 loss to the Blueshirts.
The fallout from that COVID outbreak, which saw the Islanders lose 10 in a row and go until December without a home win, essentially ended the competitive portion of their season early.
Right now, that is what the Islanders are hoping to avoid.
