Two years and change after the fact, the draft-floor trade that brought Alexander Romanov and a fourth-round pick to the Islanders in exchange for the team’s 2022 first-rounder looks not only like a success, but arguably one of the single best moves Lou Lamoriello has made as their general manager.
Recall that at the time, this was no sure thing.
Romanov was playing as a top-four defenseman for Montreal, but one year prior, he had sat out much of the Canadiens’ playoff run. There were questions about whether he had enough offense, whether he really could handle top-pair minutes, whether his game was all bark and no bite, with the occasional big hit but not much else to show for it.
The Islanders were giving up a first-round pick for a third straight season. It would later become four in a row with the Bo Horvat deal. You also could have made an argument at the time that Kirby Dach — whom the Canadiens turned around and acquired from Chicago in exchange for the first-round pick — was a more promising player than Romanov.
