Good Morning, Islanders Country.
For more than two years now, Islanders fans have argued themselves in circles over one question: Is Ilya Sorokin part of the problem, or the only thing keeping the issues from being worse? The numbers always offered cover — the save percentage respectable, the highlight reels intact — but anyone with a memory and a pulse knew he wasn’t the same goaltender who nearly stole the Vezina in 2023. That Sorokin was a fortress: seven shutouts, absurd goals-saved above expected, a season where the Islanders were allowed to dream beyond their roster because the goaltender made them relevant.
Tuesday brought the organization's first public admission that something had slipped. Piero Greco is out as goaltending coach. Sergei Naumovs is in. That isn’t a cosmetic change. That is a reset. That is ownership and management saying out loud what fans have whispered — the goalie needs rebooting.
Patrick Roy was the first to acknowledge it softly, spending extra time on the mental side. Now Mathieu Darche took the harder step seven games into the season: reunite Sorokin with a familiar voice. Naumovs is someone Sorokin has succeeded with in Russia, someone he has worked with in camps and summers, someone who knows the machinery before it malfunctioned.
