A closer look at Ilya Sorokin’s struggles, and how a goalie coach swap might help
October 29, 2025
A closer look at Ilya Sorokin’s struggles, and how a goalie coach swap might help
5 comments
>”**Sorokin is off to the worst six-game start of his NHL career**”
>”The Islanders’ biggest issue as a team has been committing turnovers while exiting their own zone. Those became less frequent over the four-game win streak that ended on Saturday, but they remain one of the biggest factors in many of Sorokin’s goals against. **They’ve also led to New York allowing the most high-danger chances per game of any team in the NHL**.”
>”Examining all of Sorokin’s goals against this season, two other trends stand out, and both are symptoms of less-than-optimal puck tracking. It’s not as if Sorokin’s tracking has been awful, but it just hasn’t quite been up to his usual lofty standards. He has been beaten by shots to his glove side that he would normally snare, and he has spilled some rebounds off his chest and pads that led to net-front scrambles and a few goals against.”
>”**On a per-game basis, Sorokin has faced more shots from the slot and in front of the net than any goalie in the NHL.** He has actually performed well on those chances. His .857 save percentage on high-danger shots is well above the league average of .811, but facing this quantity of those chances has led to goals against and poor rebounds – neither of which is good for a goalie’s confidence.”
To sum up: Sorokin hasn’t been great and the team’s defense has been god awful.
Really appreciate this post. There’s being critical, and then there’s just being ridiculous.
This season is nothing more than trial and error for what system is gonna work, and what players are gonna be part of our future. This is the perfect season for Sorokin to find his game and work with a new coach.
Fans who wanna be critical of Sorokin’s game, fine, but the overly dramatic blame and finger pointing is just embarrassing. Kid’s been the backbone of our team since he joined and continues to cover up a lot of the Isles blemishes
He deserves the benefit of the doubt, he’s put the team on his back for years. Give him some time to figure it out
it’s the same thing as last year when you just look at his stats or money pucks extremely faulted xGAA stats and everyone was saying sorokin was having a terrible year but all of the teams that actually had proprietary data had sorokin as the #1 goalie in the league by goals saved
goalies are an easy scapegoat because their job is to stop pucks and when they don’t we can just blame them!
Really cool article thanks for posting. Nice to see such a clear breakdown of what he’s doing well and get an understanding of what’s going wrong. Hopefully the defense can keep him out of high danger spots so he can build up that confidence to get him back to what we know he can be.
5 comments
>”**Sorokin is off to the worst six-game start of his NHL career**”
>”The Islanders’ biggest issue as a team has been committing turnovers while exiting their own zone. Those became less frequent over the four-game win streak that ended on Saturday, but they remain one of the biggest factors in many of Sorokin’s goals against. **They’ve also led to New York allowing the most high-danger chances per game of any team in the NHL**.”
>”Examining all of Sorokin’s goals against this season, two other trends stand out, and both are symptoms of less-than-optimal puck tracking. It’s not as if Sorokin’s tracking has been awful, but it just hasn’t quite been up to his usual lofty standards. He has been beaten by shots to his glove side that he would normally snare, and he has spilled some rebounds off his chest and pads that led to net-front scrambles and a few goals against.”
>”**On a per-game basis, Sorokin has faced more shots from the slot and in front of the net than any goalie in the NHL.** He has actually performed well on those chances. His .857 save percentage on high-danger shots is well above the league average of .811, but facing this quantity of those chances has led to goals against and poor rebounds – neither of which is good for a goalie’s confidence.”
To sum up: Sorokin hasn’t been great and the team’s defense has been god awful.
Really appreciate this post. There’s being critical, and then there’s just being ridiculous.
This season is nothing more than trial and error for what system is gonna work, and what players are gonna be part of our future. This is the perfect season for Sorokin to find his game and work with a new coach.
Fans who wanna be critical of Sorokin’s game, fine, but the overly dramatic blame and finger pointing is just embarrassing. Kid’s been the backbone of our team since he joined and continues to cover up a lot of the Isles blemishes
He deserves the benefit of the doubt, he’s put the team on his back for years. Give him some time to figure it out
it’s the same thing as last year when you just look at his stats or money pucks extremely faulted xGAA stats and everyone was saying sorokin was having a terrible year but all of the teams that actually had proprietary data had sorokin as the #1 goalie in the league by goals saved
goalies are an easy scapegoat because their job is to stop pucks and when they don’t we can just blame them!
Really cool article thanks for posting. Nice to see such a clear breakdown of what he’s doing well and get an understanding of what’s going wrong. Hopefully the defense can keep him out of high danger spots so he can build up that confidence to get him back to what we know he can be.