SEATTLE — After Pierre Engvall was called up following what amounted to an early-season exile to Siberia, it became clear quickly that either Engvall would need to step his game up or the Islanders would need to find a way to jettison the Swede.
The dynamic of Patrick Roy repeatedly getting frustrated with Engvall in public due to the winger’s inconsistent play was, simply, too much with too little positive return on the ice.
Roy, though, has been anything but frustrated with Engvall lately as the winger has indeed stepped up and strung together one of his best stretches of play since being dealt to the Isles ahead of the 2023 trade deadline.
Thursday’s 5-2 win over Vancouver, in which Engvall repeatedly attacked the net and was rewarded with his first goal of the season, marked one of his best performances in blue and orange, period.
“Outstanding,” Roy said following the game. “Seriously, he was really good tonight. He was at the net, scored that goal, he had other good chances. He was skating well up ice.”
The overriding questions about Engvall’s future in the second year of a seven-year contract still remain, and if the Islanders want to keep his $3 million cap hit off the roster once Mat Barzal and Anthony Duclair are off long-term injured reserve, it would take some maneuvering.
Engvall’s ceiling has never been the issue so much as his consistency, so it is now a matter of keeping it up and continuing to play at a high level every night.
But the water-boiling-over dynamic that played out instantly upon Engvall’s call-up has cooled off, at least for the moment.
“I think I drove the net a couple times. I’m just trying to shoot the puck as much as I can,” Engvall said Friday night. “Our line tonight worked really hard. It was nice to see we got rewarded for it.”
Alexander Romanov (upper body) shed the non-contact jersey he’d been wearing in practice, but Roy continued to describe him as day-to-day.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau missed practice with what the team described as maintenance. Roy did not sound concerned with his status for Saturday’s game.
“It’s like a Ferrari,” he said. “Sometimes you need to bring them to the garage for maintenance, that’s how it is. He’s in the garage for maintenance and he’ll be in there tomorrow.”
Ilya Sorokin will start in net Saturday, with Semyon Varlamov likely to go in Calgary on Tuesday night.
