As well as Alexander Romanov had played over the first six games, there had not been all that much reason to talk about the defenseman in his third season with the Islanders.
It was starting to feel, well, a little bit like Brock Nelson, who has cornered the market on underrated Islanders by constantly playing well, but not being too flashy in a market that doesn’t get much attention.
Romanov is, at times, a defensive version of that. He doesn’t score much. He plays on a pair with Noah Dobson, a player who gets much more press, in part because he does a lot more scoring. Other than the occasional open-ice hit that changes games, he does not do much that ends up on highlight reels.
Quietly, he has become the Islanders’ best defensive defensemen, but by its own nature, that entails doing a lot of little things that don’t get much notice.
Except, that is, in the second period of Friday’s 4-3 win over the Devils. That was when Romanov was doing everything, everywhere, all at once.
In the span of 20 minutes of game time, Romanov was laid out by Kurtis MacDermid — losing his helmet on an open-ice hit — came back to deliver a bone-crunching hit on Devils captain Jack Hughes, then had his second assist of the year, a blast from the top of the zone that Kyle Palmieri tipped in for a 3-2 lead.
“He was a beast out there,” coach Patrick Roy said.
“I don’t know how much pain that guy feels,” Ryan Pulock told The Post.
“He was denying stitches in the room,” Anders Lee said.
If you want to sum up Alexander Romanov in 20 minutes, there it was, all laid out — somewhat literally.
“You can’t really knock him down,” Pulock said. “He’s probably one of the tougher guys I’ve ever played with in terms of just what he’ll do. And I thought tonight he was physical, he was engaged in the game. I thought overall, he had a great night.”
Romanov, who like Dobson is due for a contract extension with restricted free agency looming, has firmly established himself as a top-pair defenseman at age 24.
It took some time after the Islanders dealt for him on the draft floor in 2022 for the Romanov-Dobson pair to coalesce, but now that it has, the Islanders have a duo that can be together for the next decade if they play their cards right.
Of course, that is looking far beyond Friday night in Jersey, when Romanov — quietly excellent through the first six games — was piling on reasons to take notice.
“I thought it was great,” Lee said. “Rommy plays like that every night. He’s physical, he’s hard on pucks and he’s a competitor.”