Good Morning, Islanders Country.
There’s a reason they call him Big Save Dave, and right now, he might be saving the New York Islanders from reliving one of last season’s most painful truths. A year ago, the Isles learned exactly what happens when your backup goaltending isn’t NHL-ready: you burn out your starter, you burn through your depth chart, and eventually, you burn down your season.
Ilya Sorokin carried the heaviest workload in the league because the alternatives weren’t alternatives at all. Marcus Högberg was surprisingly good until he wasn’t, Jakub Škarek wasn’t ready for prime time, and Tristan Lennox faced only two shots in his NHL debut before being pulled, which tells you everything about how thin the safety net truly was.
So when Semyon Varlamov’s injury timeline slipped into this fall and beyond, new GM Mathieu Darche had a choice: cross his fingers, or fix it. He chose the latter, bringing in David Rittich, the eccentric, battle-scarred Czech netminder who had quietly put up strong numbers in Los Angeles.
It turns out the move wasn’t just smart — it was essential.
Rittich is 6–2–0, and in his last three starts — all one-goal Islanders wins — he’s stopped 68 of 72 shots. That’s a 1.29 goals-against average and a .945 save percentage, numbers that don’t just stabilize a team… they elevate it.
