RALEIGH, N.C. — When Ilya Sorokin was standing in the tunnel after getting pulled from Game 3 against the Hurricanes, all he could think about was the three goals he’d allowed.
“That’s it,” he said Monday. “Nothing else.”
With some time having passed since that 3-2 loss to the Hurricanes on Thursday, Sorokin was able to cast a forward-looking demeanor of putting the disastrous performance behind him.
But even for someone who never tends to dwell on the past even in the best of circumstances, this was a little bit different.
“You should have short memory,” Sorokin said, speaking publicly for the first time since Thursday. “If I think a long time about all my goals. I’m a bit crazy.”
Still, he said, Game 3 was “history.”
Sorokin, goalie coach Piero Greco and director of goaltending Mitch Korn reviewed the game tape, he said, and didn’t see anything they hadn’t already been working on.
This has been a trying season for Sorokin, whose form rarely wavered over his first three seasons in the NHL, or during his time in the KHL before that.
It’s not entirely clear why, but his consistency finally broke this season, with a .924 save percentage in 2022-23 dropping to .908.
The Islanders waited for the problem to solve itself, then stopped waiting late in the year when Semyon Varlamov supplanted Sorokin in the starter’s net.
“It’s just routine things that you do every day,” Sorokin said. “You should control these things. It’s hand position and body position. It’s all about positioning. Hand positioning too.”
Varlamov, who is in line to start Game 5 against Carolina on Tuesday night, will likely have the net for the remainder of the playoff run.
As for what comes after, though, coach Patrick Roy still believes Sorokin can be a star.
“1986, Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup, rookie goalie got the MVP,” Roy said, referring to himself. “Following year, he sits on the bench. It happens to everybody. That’s why I’m saying, this is what we call it: a career. You have some ups, you have some downs, it’s how you bounce back.
“Ilya’s a smart guy. He didn’t forget how to play in goal because he’s having maybe a tougher time. And I know he’s working hard in practice. So if something happens, I know we can count on him. I have no doubt in my mind. But hey, it happened to me. Happened to him. And you know what? We grow from this. We become better because of these situations. Makes us realize it’s every day you need to work for it.”
Given that Sorokin is starting an eight-year contract extension next season, that is an important show of faith from the head coach who offered some public criticism of the goaltender earlier this season.
Roy didn’t say anything to Sorokin about Game 3, and Sorokin said that wasn’t necessary.
Even though Roy was a Hall of Fame goaltender, his job is to be the head coach, not the goalie coach and he has said from the beginning that he doesn’t want to infringe on Greco’s territory.
That is a delicate line for anyone to walk, but especially so for Roy, given his pedigree.
He may be hands-off in working directly with the goalies, but he is still a big voice in the room and the biggest voice talking on behalf of the organization every day.
Whatever he says or thinks about the goalies matters, and matters more than most coaches who are not Hall of Famers at the position.
Sorokin, along with everyone else, is eagerly moving on from the Game 3 debacle. And unless Varlamov gets hurt, the Islanders can give him the summer to get right.
That, they hope, will be enough to get him back into form.
“New day,” Sorokin said. “What was in past, stays in past. You can’t change this. You can just focus on today and continue working. That’s it.”
Matt Martin (lower body) didn’t practice Monday and will not play Tuesday, coach Patrick Roy said.
The Islanders have yet to decide who will take Martin’s spot on the left side of the fourth line, but Simon Holmstrom skated there Monday.
The Hurricanes changed up their lines at practice, with Jordan Staal centering a second line between Teuvo Teravainen and Seth Jarvis; Evgeny Kuznetsov skating between Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Stefan Noesen; and a fourth line of Martin Necas, Jack Drury and Jordan Martinook.
Varlamov will start Game 5 for the Islanders, Roy said.
