Patrick Roy is gone, but the Islanders' Rantanen grudge is still open

The hit that still has a shelf life

Last November, Mikko Rantanen came in from behind late in the third period and sent Alexander Romanov face-first into the boards. It was a questionable hit at best and, in my read, a dirty one. Rantanen was given a game misconduct for boarding, but the fallout went well past the penalty box. Former Islanders head coach Patrick Roy was clearly unhappy with what he saw, and he made that known as Rantanen skated off.

Roy's words weren't audible from the press box, so what we have is a lip-reading read. Those who read his lips came away with the sense that he told Rantanen he wasn't going to finish the game. Whatever the exact phrasing, the body language said enough. Roy's own playing career was physical, and he has never been shy about giving an opinion, so the reaction fit the man as much as the moment.

Why the feud can't play out on the ice right now

Here's the thing: the rivalry everyone expected to get its next chapter has been pushed back on several fronts at once. Roy is no longer on the Islanders' bench. Whether the coaching change last season was the right call has been debated, and that debate was reasonable at the time. But it means the coach who fired off that reaction won't be in Dallas to watch Rantanen again.

Romanov is also out. He's currently sidelined for an estimated six to eight months after suffering a torn ACL earlier this month. That's a significant blow to an Islanders defense that already lost a lot of Romanov's time last season, when he played only 15 games. For a player whose absence has been this frequent, the bigger concern is simply keeping him on the ice, and the revenge storyline gets buried under that reality.

Rantanen's absence and the Olympic detour

Rantanen didn't get the chance to face the Islanders immediately after the hit. He was injured while playing for Finland at the Olympics, and that meant he wasn't in the lineup for the next game between the Stars and Islanders. So the first rematch with the man he hit came and went without him.

That leaves Sunday in Dallas as the next opportunity to see Rantanen across the ice from the Islanders. It's a chance the fans have been waiting on, even if the players involved aren't the ones who would have made it the headline. Romanov is out, and Roy is no longer on the bench, so the story has shifted from a personal grudge to a lineup question.

What Sunday means for the Islanders

Even without Roy and Romanov, I expect this game to carry some extra energy. The Islanders are coming off a 3–2 loss to the Los Angeles Kings, a game in which they did a lot of things well. That matters. A team that competes that hard in a one-goal defeat wants to show it can't be pushed around, and a home-and-away meeting with the Stars gives them an opportunity to make that point.

The Romanov injury is the larger takeaway. A defenseman who doesn't play much can still be the piece that changes how a blue line works, and his absence will shape how the Islanders manage their pairings and minutes for the rest of the season. The more immediate question is who steps up in his place and how the group holds up without a defender who was supposed to be a major part of the picture.

The next chapter is next season

The natural rematch that fans wanted, Romanov against Rantanen with Roy watching from the bench, is now on hold. Romanov's recovery pushes his return into the 2026–27 season, which means the addition the Islanders had been counting on will have to wait a year. Rantanen will have to wait the same amount of time to look across the ice at the player he sent into the boards.

That's the part worth tracking. Sunday's game will be entertaining on its own merits, but the real payoff for anyone who wants this feud settled is still a long way off. My read is the Islanders will use the rest of this season to build a defense without Romanov, and the Rantanen question will come back up once he's healthy. Until then, the grudge stays on the books, unresolved.