The next Islanders Vs Stars meeting has been pulled tight by one hit from last November, and the biggest question around it is whether Mikko Rantanen will be on the ice. He was not in the lineup for the previous game between the teams, leaving the rematch frame unsettled before the puck was even dropped again.
Last November, Rantanen drove Alexander Romanov face-first into the boards with a hit from behind in a Stars-Islanders game and was handed a game misconduct for boarding. As he left the ice, Patrick Roy shouted after him, telling him he was not going to finish the game. That moment turned a routine regular-season matchup into something heavier, and it is why this next game between the Stars and Islanders is being watched as more than another date on the schedule.
Rantanen’s absence from the earlier follow-up game only sharpened the uncertainty. He was injured at the Olympics while playing for Finland, so the rematch angle now sits beside a plain roster question: whether he is able to take part at all. The story is not just about what happened in November, but about what has not yet been settled since then.
There is a further twist in the frame around the next contest. Patrick Roy is no longer behind the Islanders bench, and Romanov is also out of the lineup in this version of the matchup. That leaves the physical memory of the hit intact even as the key voices and one of the players involved are missing from the scene.
The next Stars and Islanders game had not yet happened when this was written, so the only certainty is the one that started the conversation: Rantanen’s boarding hit on Romanov still defines the meeting. What follows will not be a replay of last November, but it will still be judged against it.
