WINNIPEG, Manitoba — The Islanders can hardly afford to lose a game right now, and they are acting like it.
Ilya Sorokin will be in nets not once but twice for the Islanders on a Friday-Saturday back-to-back in Winnipeg and Minnesota, with a two-week break looming once the team gets back home.
“The plan is to play him both games,” coach Patrick Roy told reporters after Thursday’s practice. “I don’t like to go too far ahead. We’ll focus on Winnipeg, but the plan is to play him both games.”
The way Sorokin is playing right now — and with Semyon Varlamov and Marcus Hogberg dealing with injuries at the moment — it’s hard to argue with the decision.
Sorokin is on a six-start winning streak, a span over which he has stopped 170 of his last 177 shots against, having turned around his season after struggling through the month of December.
He’s also played both games of a back-to-back before, including once this season, when the Islanders beat Carolina and Ottawa on Dec. 7-8.
Though Hogberg’s emergence — and the subsequent rest it allowed Sorokin — was a crucial factor in that turnaround, the upcoming break is allowing the Islanders to throw everything at this weekend.
Moreover, with Hogberg having joined Varlamov on the injured list, Jakub Skarek does not present a compelling alternative. Skarek made his NHL debut against the Panthers on the second end of a back-to-back last weekend and did not give up any bad goals in the 6-3 defeat, but letting in five on 32 shots did not scream that the Islanders should throw him in again.
Particularly given what Sorokin has done lately, with the defense in front of him having performed admirably, as well.
“We have one of the best goalies in the league,” Roy said after the Islanders beat Vegas on Tuesday. “So when you’re doing a good job protecting the house and forcing them to take long shots with no screens, it’s an easier job for him.
“It’s a solid team effort. I think everybody is doing a really good job helping defensively, but what I love is how we break out. How good we got that puck out of the zone, it was impressive. We had a lot of success.”
The Islanders have won eight of their last nine games against the Jets, including four of their last five games in Winnipeg. The one loss, however, came last January, the last time they played at Canada Life Centre.
