Alexander Romanov
New York Islanders Defense
22:18 a night at 25 — the heaviest workload on the club among men who played a full season — and 4 per cent shooting on 100 attempts.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | MTL | 54 | 1 | 5 | 6 | +1 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 71 | 1.4 | 17:15 |
| 2021-22 | MTL | 79 | 3 | 10 | 13 | -9 | 53 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 107 | 2.8 | 20:24 |
| 2022-23 | NYI | 76 | 2 | 20 | 22 | +13 | 43 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 2.0 | 19:27 |
| 2023-24 | NYI | 81 | 7 | 15 | 22 | +23 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 117 | 6.0 | 20:50 |
| 2024-25 | NYI | 64 | 4 | 16 | 20 | +5 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 4.0 | 22:18 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 354 | 17 | 66 | 83 | +33 | 157 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 495 | 3.4 | 20:09 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
64 games, 4 goals and 16 assists for 20 points at 22:18 a night, on 100 shots at 4 per cent. 20 penalty minutes. Plus-5.
A 49.7 per cent chance share across 1,185 five-on-five minutes, with on-ice goals of 49-47 against an expected 48.67-50.35 — he scored what the chances said and conceded ten fewer than expected, which is Ilya Sorokin. This is a defensive defenceman playing the heaviest even-strength minutes on the roster at 25.
The Finesse Game
Limited and undisguised. 3 per cent of his shots came from inside 20 feet and 75 per cent from beyond 40, and 4 per cent on 100 attempts is a point shot without much behind it.
The skating is the real asset — he closes gaps quickly, recovers when beaten, and can turn and go with a winger who has a step. The first pass is safe rather than quick and he will rim it under pressure rather than attempt the seam.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 220 and among the most physically punishing defencemen in the league. He steps up at the blue line and finishes, he clears the crease by force, and he plays every shift as though the score were tied late.
20 penalty minutes in 64 games at twenty-two minutes a night is the surprising part — that is a genuinely heavy player who almost never reaches, which is a rarer combination than the hit totals suggest.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick out of Montreal, traded twice before 23, and now the most durable heavy-minute defenceman on a club with three men older and better paid than him.
He is 25 and has already played five NHL seasons. The workload is the tell: a coaching staff that trusts him against the other side’s best line at 22 minutes has settled the question of what he is.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
18:31 a game at five-on-five, 93rd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“6-1 and 220 and among the most physically punishing defencemen in the league.”
“he clears the crease by force”
“that is a genuinely heavy player who almost never reaches”
“This is a defensive defenceman playing the heaviest even-strength minutes on the roster at 25.”
“The first pass is safe rather than quick and he will rim it under pressure rather than attempt the seam.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,185 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.2%
- 46th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.1%
- 44th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 49 for, 47 against. Expected: 48.7 and 50.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 29 points above where the report does. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 66 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 64 games
- Top speed
- 21.5 mph
- 45th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.59 a game
- Distance
- 3.11 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 91.1 mph
- 53rd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 89.7
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 1185 minutes at five-on-five
- Ryan Pulock13%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2024-25
- The club
- NYI took 49.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.2% — 0.7 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,185 minutes at five-on-five — 83rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noah Dobson | 54.6% | 45.5% | 53.8% |
| Bo Horvat | 50.0% | 48.7% | 52.3% |
| Anthony DeAngelo | 46.6% | 50.4% | 52.0% |
54.6% together, 45.5% for him apart and 53.8% for Dobson apart. He was worse away from Dobson, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Dobson did.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
146 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 61 feet. 3% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 75% from beyond forty.