The New York Islanders are set to take on the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 3 of the first round series on Thursday, and after losing the first two games on the road to fall down 2-0 in the series, head coach Patrick Roy is making a change at goaltender, saying that Ilya Sorokin will start in Game 3, according to Stefan Rosner of NHL.com.
The Islanders started Semyon Varlamov in the first two games against the Hurricanes on the road. It did not go to plan, as New York fell down 2-0 in the series. In the first game, Semyon Varlamov made 23 saves on 25 shots for a .920 save percentage. The Islanders went on to lose the game 3-1 as Carolina tacked on an empty net goal in the waning minutes. Varlamov did not necessarily play bad in that game, it was Game 2 that was disappointing.
In Game 2, the Islanders took a 3-0 lead at one point, and went into the second intermission with a 3-1 lead. However, the Hurricanes pulled to within one with about 10 minutes left in the third period. Then, late in the game, Sebastian Aho and Jordan Martinook scored two goals within a nine-second span with under three minutes to go to take a 4-3 lead. Carolina tacked on an empty net goal to win 5-3. In the game, Varlamov faced 38 shots and saved 34 of them for an .895 save percentage, which just did not cut it for Patrick Roy.
The Islanders are hoping that going home for games three and four results in a change in momentum in a series in which they were already viewed as significant underdogs, and that inserting Ilya Sorokin will jumpstart the team. Losing Game 2 in that fashion is a huge blow, so there has to be a significant change in the momentum.
Ilya Sorokin's season
The Islanders came into this season with visions of Sorokin as their goalie of the future, and that might still be the case, but it was a bit of a roller coaster year for him. It led to him eventually being benched for Varlamov down the stretch.
Sorokin played in 56 games this year, and he had a 25-19-12 record in those games with a career-low .908 save percentage, according to Hockey Reference. The Islanders are hoping that Sorokin plays up to his standard from the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 seasons. They will need that caliber of play to have any hopes of coming back in the series against the Hurricanes.
It will be interesting to see how Sorokin fares in Game 3. The Islanders will look to come out with a new energy as the series shifts to their home ice down 2-0. They will need to replicate their level of play from the first two periods of Game 2 to have a chance of getting a win.