Mitchell Chaffee was emergency recalled from loan (Hamilton) on Monday morning. Alexander Romanov was placed on IR.
Chaffee, who signed a one-year deal with the Islanders over the summer, has six points (4G, 2A) in six games with AHL Hamilton.
Romanov suffered a torn ACL in his right knee on Oct. 6 against the New York Rangers and is expected to be out for six-to-eight months.
Read a full collection of news and lineup notes from practice on Monday.
Chaffee Comes To The Island
Mitchell Chaffee started his Sunday getting ready to suit up in game action for the Hamilton Hammers. By the end of the night, he had an assist, nine shots on goal and was on a plane to Long Island to be with the Islanders.
Chaffee was aware of the injuries to Ritchie and Maccelli and found out after the Hammers’ 4-3 loss to the Syracuse Crunch that he’d be joining the Isles.
He carpooled from TD Coliseum in Hamilton to the Toronto airport with Islanders General Manager Mathieu Darche, Assistant General Manager and Hamilton Hammers GM Evan Gold, and co-owner Jon Ledecky and the four flew to Long Island together.
Chaffee played the 2025-26 season with the Crunch and totaled 57 points (24G, 33A), tied for 25th in the AHL. He blends his strong offensive prowess with a physical brand which will pair well with Cizikas and MacLean.
Chaffee inked a one-year contract with the Islanders in July, and this will be his first shot with the club since being signed. He said it’s an opportunity he’s excited for as he looks to make his Isles debut.
“This is why you play the game,” Chaffee said. “You want to play at the highest level, and a big part of me is I feel like I can help this team. My plan is to come here and help the team in many different ways that I can and play my game and continue to get better. There's obviously a great staff here and a lot of good players and just learning from them as well.”
Chaffee has been an all-situations player in the past on the power play, penalty kill and 5-on-5.
DeBoer will be able to call upon Chaffee’s versatility if needed and the latter said understanding DeBoer’s system has come quickly due to the stylistically similar structure to that of Jon Cooper of the Tampa Bay Lightning where Chafee spent parts of three seasons.
“[He] just worked hard, good detail to his game, really professional,” DeBoer said. “What I liked best about him was he was disappointed when he went down, as he should have been, because he had a good camp. But the way he handled it, he went down had a hat trick in their opener. That's a great lesson on how to handle adversity and control what you can control and he did, and as a result, he's right back up here again.”
When the Islanders signed Chaffee on July 1, they also signed defenseman Matt Kessel, his collegiate teammate at UMass (NCAA).
Chaffee was the captain of the 2019-2020 UMass team they played on and the pair of Michigan products exchanged a series of congratulatory texts together when they signed with the Isles.
They may have an opportunity on Tuesday to play together for the first time in six years in a regular season game.
“It’s awesome to have him up here,” Kessel said. “I was happy when he got signed here. We've seen what he can do during camp and awesome that he’s here now.”
