Ilya Sorokin was not supposed to be the Islanders’ best player at the 10-game mark.
Really, he wasn’t even supposed to have played nine of those 10 games. But here we are, and Sorokin is the biggest reason why the Isles, 5-3-2 entering the last three games of a brutal road trip, have retained their footing.
Some of Sorokin’s numbers so far: a .939 save percentage, 1.98 goals against average, 6.4 goals saved above expected (per MoneyPuck) and three shutouts. As coach Barry Trotz has pointed out, it could easily be five shutouts.
“He’s so steady,” Anders Lee said after the third shutout, against Winnipeg over the weekend. “You can just see it in his eyes how calm he is back there, how poised he is. He’s never out of a save.”
Semyon Varlamov returned to the Islanders’ lineup on Sunday night, saving 34 of 37 shots in an eventual 5-2 loss to the Wild. It is fair to wonder what the split will look like between him and Sorokin going forward — because there is not much more Sorokin could have done to earn the 1A role.
Here’s what else we’ve learned about the Isles through 10 games:
Breaking up Pelech and Pulock has papered over cracks
Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock seemed set in stone as the team’s top pairing before the season. But after losses against Carolina and Florida in which the Islanders gave up six and five goals, respectively, Trotz shook things up.
Pelech has been with Scott Mayfield, Pulock with Zdeno Chara, Andy Greene with Noah Dobson. Mayfield and Pelech, in particular, have complemented each other well — the Isles have a 56 percent Fenwick, which measures unblocked shot attempt differential while on ice, and lead in expected goals share with them on the ice, per Natural Stat Trick.
Putting their best two defenders on different pairings, though, has let the Islanders spread their talent throughout a lineup that has shown some issues elsewhere between age (Chara, Greene) and Dobson, who at 21 is still getting his footing.
“It’s given us some balance and it’s settled down some of our guys,” Trotz said prior to Sunday’s game. “I think you’re seeing, it was gonna take a while for [Chara] to sort of understand how we play and get a feel for that, and even just the consistency in some guys. Andy Greene didn’t have a great start, he’s playing much better. Dobber didn’t have a great start, he’s playing much better. I would even say Pully and Pelly didn’t have great starts. But now their game’s coming together.”
The Islanders still haven’t played their best
One of Trotz’s preferred measuring sticks for the Islanders has been whether all four lines have been playing at the level he wants.
Against Winnipeg, when the Islanders spent the second period hanging onto a one-goal lead before Brock Nelson gave them some insurance in the third, he was happy. In a 6-2 rout against the Canadiens before that, there wasn’t much to complain about. Against Minnesota on Sunday, when the Islanders got outshot 16-2 in the third period, blew a lead and lost 5-2?
“We needed guys to step up,” Trotz said. “Yesterday I felt like I had all four lines going. Today we didn’t.”
There are some good signs.
Lee has scored three goals in two games, including one on a great feed from Mat Barzal off the rush on Sunday. Nelson already has five goals in November. The young Oliver Wahlstrom has had some impressive moments, and the line of him, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Zach Parise has quietly played well.
Still, the top-line analytics tell a worrying story. The Islanders have a slightly negative expected goal differential, per Natural Stat Trick. They are 28th in Fenwick, dead last in Corsi. All four of the Islanders’ forward lines have been outshot by opponents at five-on-five, per MoneyPuck. Outperforming analytics is nothing new for this franchise, but this could be better.
They’ll be glad to come home on Nov. 20, a date now firmly in view. And glad for Sorokin in net.