Most of what the Islanders can take from watching the playoffs after they were eliminated in the first round boils down to the gap between them and everybody else.
Round by round, it has gotten tougher and tougher to believe the idea that the Islanders are even close to the level needed to compete with the likes of the Panthers and Oilers, the Rangers and Stars.
They need more skill, they need more grit, they need a better penalty kill, they need more depth. If they come into next season still asking to be judged as a Cup competitor, it will be a harsh judgment until proven otherwise.
But with Sergei Bobrovsky being one of the front-runners for the Conn Smythe Trophy, there is a silver lining for the Islanders.
The single biggest question hanging over the franchise going into next season surrounds Ilya Sorokin after the netminder suffered a downturn in performance this season that ended in his being benched down the stretch and pulled from the only playoff game in which he started. The image of Sorokin standing in the tunnel digesting the three goals he allowed on 14 shots in Game 3 against the Hurricanes is going to endure.
Sorokin’s track record suggests he will bounce back next season, but everything from the eight-year, $66 million extension that kicks in on July 1 to the way the Islanders play underscores their deep reliance on that coming true.
Semyon Varlamov’s continued sturdiness is a good safety net — one that got the Islanders into this season’s playoffs — but the Islanders should be unnerved by Sorokin’s play, and bringing in Sergei Naumovs, Sorokin’s former goalie coach at CSKA Moscow, to work with the AHL netminders is a sign the organization is being proactive.
Bobrovsky’s career, and particularly his dominant playoffs showings over the past two seasons (setting aside the 8-1 debacle in Game 4 of the Cup Final — an exception that proves the rule), is another reason for confidence in a bounce-back.
Recall that going into last year’s postseason, Bobrovsky’s seven-year, $70 million pact with the Panthers looked like a negative asset. The 35-year-old who coincidentally hails from Novokuznetsk — the Russian city where Sorokin first played in the KHL — had posted subpar numbers in three of his first four seasons with the Cats and lost the starters’ net to Alex Lyon while out with illness going into the postseason.
Sorokin, despite his struggles this season, finished with 8.45 goals saved above expected, according to Evolving Hockey. By the same metric, Bobrovsky’s first four seasons in Florida finished at minus-13.46, minus-9.97, 12.14 and 2.92, respectively, with a save percentage below .910 in three of four seasons.
Of course, everybody knew the two-time Vezina Trophy winner still was capable of greatness on any given night. Goalies are finicky. We all know the clichés.
But it took until last year’s playoffs, when Bobrovsky re-took the net from Lyon heading into Game 4 of the first round against the Bruins, for that to play out. The Panthers rode Bobrovsky to last year’s Cup Final as he accounted for an astonishing 19.44 GSAx and .915 save percentage over 19 games.
It has been the same story this season with Bobrovsky turning in a regular season that has him among the Vezina finalists — though the advanced metrics are just OK — and again finding his best stuff in the playoffs. No one is worried about his contract now. The Panthers would not be on the brink of their first championship without him.
That is the sort of turnaround the Islanders can hope to see from Sorokin, whose 2023-24 season represented the worst he has played since turning pro in 2012-13. And the list of netminders who have experienced something similar is not only quite long, but it includes the current coach of the Islanders.
“1986, Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup, rookie goalie got the MVP,” Patrick Roy said before the Islanders were eliminated. “It happens to everybody. That’s why I’m saying this is what we call it: a career. You have some ups, you have some downs. It’s how you bounce back.
“Ilya’s a smart guy. He didn’t forget how to play in goal because he’s having maybe a tougher time.”
Preseason schedule drop
The Islanders released their preseason schedule Monday (it is presumed the NHL’s regular-season schedule will be released at next week’s draft).
The Isles will play the same three opponents who have comprised their preseason schedule for the past few years — the Devils, Rangers and Flyers — with home and away matches against each.
The opener will be on Sept. 22 in New Jersey, followed by games at Madison Square Garden and the Wells Fargo Center. The Devils, Flyers and Rangers will then visit UBS Arena in that order on Sept. 27, Sept. 30 and Oct. 4.
Islanders 🤝 WNBA
It was predictable that Isles co-owner Jon Ledecky would end up being visible at some point this summer, with his niece, Katie, at the Paris Olympics looking to add to her collection of seven gold medals.
It was not so predictable that Ledecky would have a semi-viral moment while attending an Indiana Fever game during Olympic trials, which are being held in Indianapolis.
Ledecky, sitting on one of the baselines, was nearly hit in the head with the ball as it came flying out of bounds after Angel Reese’s Flagrant 1 foul on Caitlin Clark — a moment that counted as the latest flareup in the seemingly never-ending discourse around the WNBA superstar — with his nephew, Michael, tapping the ball away.
In unrelated news that falls under a similar theme, the Liberty are set to play the Commissioner’s Cup Championship at UBS Arena next Tuesday night against the Minnesota Lynx while Barclays Center is booked for the NBA Draft.
UBS has hosted college basketball before, but this will mark the first foray into professional hoops for the building.
