{"id":399040,"date":"2026-01-09T06:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/399040\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T06:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:15:11","slug":"islanders-leave-injured-bo-horvat-in-new-york-for-start-of-road-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/399040\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders leave injured Bo Horvat in New York for start of road trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASHVILLE, Tenn. \u2014 The Islanders reversed their plan to have Bo Horvat travel on the entire seven-game road trip that started in Nashville on Thursday, instead leaving the centerman behind in New York where it is easier for him to get treatment on his lower-body injury, general manager Mathieu Darche said Thursday before the Islanders\u2019 2-1 shootout defeat to Predators<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At least in Darche\u2019s telling, it was not made to sound like a setback for Horvat. The door is still open for Horvat to join the two-week trip in progress, or even play by the end of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely expect him [back] way before the Olympic break,\u201d Darche said of Horvat, who will represent Team Canada in Milan. \u201cI\u2019d like to at the end of this trip. If it\u2019s not, it\u2019s not the end of the world. If it is, good for us. We want to make sure we do it right so he doesn\u2019t take a step back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BoBo Horvat defends during the Islanders\u2019 blowout loss to the Mammoth on Jan.1, 2026 at UBS Arena. Getty Images<\/p>\n

If Horvat does meet the Islanders somewhere down the line, Darche said it would presumably be in the second half of the trip.<\/p>\n

Horvat\u2019s current injury, which looked to be related to his left side, is \u201csimilar without necessarily being linked\u201d to the issue that kept him out for five games in December before he got hurt again on New Year\u2019s Day, Darche said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur doctors think there\u2019s a strong chance it would\u2019ve happened [either way],\u201d Darche said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t come back too early. That was his [fourth] game, even the last few days [beforehand] he wasn\u2019t getting treatment on the previous injury. It\u2019s just bad luck that it happened to the same part of the body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defenseman Isaiah George, who has been dealing with a lower-body injury at Bridgeport, is supposed to play this weekend, according to Darche.<\/p>\n

Alexander Romanov (right shoulder) has not yet started to skate on his own. Darche said he is \u201cprogressing really, really well\u201d and there is a chance Romanov could return for a potential playoff run.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOn the ice from Long Island\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Islanders by Ethan Sears, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Whether Semyon Varlamov ever returns from a knee injury, and when that might be, remains unclear. Varlamov continues to work on his own and has recently started dropping into a stance more, but Darche said the Russian is not factoring into his planning at the goaltender position.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis situation won\u2019t affect what I do with David [Rittich] right now because we don\u2019t have an endgame right now with Varly,\u201d Darche said.<\/p>\n

Like Anders Lee and Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Darche hasn\u2019t yet started discussing an extension with Rittich, who was signed to a one-year deal last offseason.<\/p>\n

Rittich got the start in net against the Predators. Coach Patrick Roy said the Islanders decided he would play before Ilya Sorokin returned from injury with a 44-save shutout Tuesday, not wanting to overload Sorokin right away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASHVILLE, Tenn. \u2014 The Islanders reversed their plan to have Bo Horvat travel on the entire seven-game road…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5110],"tags":[3669,5,122,3328,159,5190,5189,4,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-399040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-islanders","8":"tag-bo-horvat","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-islanders","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-islanders","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkislanders","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115863678190434921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}