It’s the goalies, stupid.
The Islanders can and should worry about their special teams and how their defense is constructed and whether their offense can keep up without Mat Barzal and Anthony Duclair and all of the minutiae within each of those buckets. That’s all fine and good, and it all matters plenty.
But let’s talk bottom line here for a moment. Staying in the playoff race from now until whenever it is that the Islanders get healthy is about Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov. And as bad as everything else has looked, there is not really much to worry about on that front.
All the way back when the season started, some four weeks ago, Sorokin was the biggest question hanging over the Islanders. There was his offseason back surgery; there were his struggles down the stretch and in the playoffs last season; there was his eight-year contract, which would instantly become an albatross if he could not recover well.
That all went away pretty fast.
Heading into Thursday night’s match in Ottawa, where Varlamov was expected to start for the first time since last Wednesday’s loss in Columbus, Sorokin had compiled a .921 save percentage and 2.35 GAA through his first eight starts. That is, almost exactly, on a par with the .924 save percentage and 2.34 GAA he had in 2022-23, when the Islanders made the playoffs almost entirely because of how well Sorokin played — including over the late-season stretch when Barzal was out injured.
It was about the goalies then. It is about the goalies now.
“He’s one of the best goalies in the game,” none less than Patrick Roy said of Sorokin last week.
There is a little more room for concern over Varlamov, who came into Thursday with a .876 save percentage and negative-1.93 goals saved above expected, per Evolving Hockey, over his first five starts. The early-season plan was to split starts evenly between the two, in no small part because of the belief that playing nearly every night had a negative impact on Sorokin over time.
That plan already showed cracks as Sorokin started three straight games leading into Thursday. It will go straight into the garbage bin if he continues to outplay his counterpart by such a wide margin.
Varlamov’s history, though, tells us this is more likely a small-sample anomaly than something to be seriously concerned about. Across his first five seasons on the Island, all of which came over age 30, Varlamov had a .917 save percentage and was as steady as they come.
To the credit of both Roy and the Islanders, they are also not allowing themselves to be caved in on a nightly basis the same way they were under Lane Lambert. Though Roy correctly admitted Tuesday they would likely give up more shots and chances without Alexander Romanov, Mike Reilly and Adam Pelech in the fold, the Islanders have done a better job of keeping the opposition to the outside and limiting chances since he took over as head coach.
Even if the goalies will need to be relied upon, that cannot be the explicit strategy or the mindset within the dressing room. The other 21 guys can’t control how the goalies play, but they can have a say in how easy it is for them on a nightly basis. Indeed, Sorokin’s 3.47 goals saved above expected — good but not near the top of the league — has more to do with the Islanders’ success in their own zone than anything Sorokin is not doing in comparison to a couple of years ago.
So the goalies may not be the only thing, and the parallels between Sorokin and prime-era Jacob deGrom are indeed concerning. But they are the most important thing.
Reality at the moment is that the Islanders are missing two of their most skilled offensive players and rank 31st league-wide in per-game scoring. Reality is that the entire left side of their defense is injured and there will be a drop-off as a result. Reality is that they need wins right now after a poor first 10 games of the season and that even in the best-case scenario, they will not field a completely healthy lineup until after returning home from a five-game western Canada and Detroit trip in two weeks.
Reality is that whatever else happens between now and then, it is about the goalies.
