Jonathan Drouin and Ryan Pulock uncertainty exposes an Islanders pressure point on the road trip

On a road trip that began with routine practice lines and a standard back-to-back plan in net, the New York Islanders were pulled into something less predictable: availability. jonathan drouin returned to the lineup Wednesday after missing Sunday’s game, while a late change kept Ryan Pulock out despite taking a full morning skate. The result was not merely a shuffled depth chart in Anaheim—it was a stress test of how quickly the Islanders can stabilize when key pieces are in motion.

Practice in Anaheim set the template—then game day rewrote it

The Islanders opened their four-game road trip with a skate at Great Park Ice in Anaheim, where the lines and pairs reflected a team preparing for contingencies. Head coach Patrick Roy confirmed a back-to-back plan in goal: David Rittich starting Wednesday night against the Anaheim Ducks and Ilya Sorokin set for Thursday against the Los Angeles Kings.

Tuesday’s practice also offered an early signal on injuries. jonathan drouin practiced after missing Sunday with a lower-body injury, saying it felt good to skate and that he was hoping to play Wednesday. Meanwhile Pulock, listed as a maintenance day at practice, did not participate and his status for the Ducks remained undecided at that point.

By Wednesday morning, the story tightened. Pulock was a full participant in the skate, only for Roy to announce shortly afterward that Pulock would not play later that evening. Roy framed it as a call based on how Pulock felt in the morning session, labeling it a game-time decision that tilted toward caution when Pulock “didn’t feel ready to play. ” Roy added that the team would “wait for tomorrow, ” leaving open the possibility that Pulock could be available Thursday.

What Pulock’s late scratch revealed about Islanders structure

Facts on the ice were blunt: the Islanders lost 5-1 in Anaheim, and Pulock’s absence was described inside the room as something the team felt immediately. The game also illustrated how quickly one missing defenseman can cascade into multiple changes.

With Pulock out, Adam Boqvist drew back into the lineup for his first game since a 4-0 win over the Flyers on Jan. 26. The initial alignment placed Boqvist on the third pair with Carson Soucy while Scott Mayfield moved up to the top pair with Matthew Schaefer. That first look did not last. By the first intermission, the defense pairs were rotating, and the rotation continued throughout—an on-the-fly attempt to find combinations that could settle.

This is where the context becomes more telling than any single shift. Pulock’s season usage and production were already established before the Ducks game: 24 points (3 goals, 21 assists) and 21: 03 per night in time on ice, second only to Schaefer. Removing that workload at the last moment is not like swapping a winger on a third line; it alters who faces top matchups, who starts breakouts, and how often the group needs to improvise pairings under pressure.

After the loss, defenseman Tony DeAngelo summarized the team’s immediate reality: “You’re always going to feel [it] when one of your better guys is out, ” while also crediting Boqvist for filling in. That “next man up” framing is a familiar line in any locker room, but Wednesday’s first-period rotation showed the other side of it: depth can cover minutes, yet cohesion is harder to replace at speed.

jonathan drouin returns as the forward group keeps shifting

The forward picture carried its own tension before puck drop. On Tuesday, Roy suggested that if jonathan drouin was able to play Wednesday, he likely would. Drouin himself was cautious, describing that practice went well but not committing to his status, and he also acknowledged how limited he had been physically in the days leading up to that skate.

By Wednesday night, Drouin was back in the lineup, and Anthony Duclair came out as a healthy scratch. Drouin’s season production was clear going into the Ducks game: 20 points (3 goals, 17 assists) through 53 games in his first season as an Islander. Roy’s broader point earlier in the week—“It’s a long year, we’re gonna need everybody”—lands differently when the team is simultaneously managing both injury uncertainty and selection decisions on the fly during travel.

There was also a performance-based undercurrent to the lineup juggling. In Sunday’s win over Florida, Duclair skated on a second line with Cal Ritchie and Emil Heineman, and that unit was characterized as the Islanders’ worst line in shots and expected goals in that game, with Natural Stat Trick cited as the tracking reference. Roy defended Duclair’s effort, noting a breakaway and competitive details, but the Wednesday scratch still illustrated how quickly roles can change when someone like Drouin is able to return.

The Ducks game: goaltending plan held, but the margins did not

The Islanders’ goaltending blueprint did not change: Rittich started in Anaheim as scheduled. The numbers from the game reflected the uphill fight. Rittich stopped 21 of 25 shots for the Islanders, while Ville Husso turned aside 42 shots for Anaheim. The Ducks also had a prominent driver in Leo Carlsson, who recorded an assist and drew praise from Roy as “a special player, ” while Cutter Gauthier scored twice.

There are two grounded takeaways from those facts. First, the Islanders generated volume—42 shots faced by Husso is not incidental—yet were outscored heavily. Second, the Pulock absence and the defensive instability it triggered meant the Islanders were operating without one of their most-used pieces in a game where the opponent’s top contributors were highly noticeable.

Deadline atmosphere and the uncertainty factor

Even away from the immediate lineup, the broader environment around the team was unusually pointed. The Ducks game took place 48 hours before the deadline, with only two scouts in attendance identified as coming from the St. Louis Blues, as rumors connecting the Islanders to Blues assets such as Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas continued to swirl. No transactions were confirmed here, but the detail matters as context: in a deadline window, health questions and lineup flexibility can influence how a team evaluates its needs and risks in real time.

For now, the Islanders’ focus remains immediate and measurable: whether Pulock is available Thursday, and whether jonathan drouin can build continuity after returning from a lower-body injury. The road trip has barely begun, but the opening act already asked an uncomfortable question—how stable can the Islanders be when the plan changes after the morning skate?