The Islanders’ White Whale splashed in the NHL on Saturday night.
After Semyon Varlamov took a throat during warm-ups, Ilya Sorokin made her NHL debut in the Islanders’ 5-0 defeat at Madison Square Garden 2,934 days after the organization ranked him 78th overall in 2014.
Head coach Barry Trotz did not have an immediate update on Varlamov, who placed an exclusion against the Rangers for Thursday’s season. Cory Schneider was only a day after officially signing his one-year deal with the Islanders.
While the islanders waited patiently for the 25-year-old Sorokin to be ready for the NHL, Trotz made it clear that Sorokin’s debut was not under the circumstances they had hoped for.
“We hung him out to dry,” Trotz said on a Zoom call after the loss.
Trotz also noted that it was “unacceptable” that Varlamov was injured during the warm-up, adding that it was unfair to Sorokin.
In the first period, the 25-year-old Sorokin allowed two goals to compatriot Pavel Buchnevich and Artemi Panarin on the first ten strokes he faced. He ended the evening with 27 saves on 32 shots.
“I know [him] rather ‘, Alexandar Georgiev said about Sorokin last week. ‘We worked together with the national team a few years ago. Awesome purpose a good guy. I obviously have good things to say. I think he’s a good goalkeeper. ”
Tony DeAngelo was a healthy scratch for the Rangers in Saturday’s rematch against the islanders.
The Rangers defender chatted with the taxi group on Friday after being asked for a minute and five seconds of unsportsmanlike conduct in the third period of Thursday’s 4-0 defeat against the Islands. DeAngelo, who was previously a healthy scratch under David Quinn for what the Rangers head coach described as ‘maturity issues’, slammed the door of the penalty kick and opened his mouth for the refs after committing a home penalty.
“Listen, there’s just a lot of things going on that we’re going to keep in the house, and that’s one of them,” Quinn said before the game at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. ‘Tony and I talked about it. There is clarity about what happened here. It was the right thing to do and he will be in the series again soon. ”
Asked if he would scratch any other player in the set if he behaved like DeAngelo on Thursday, Quinn said he would do so and that it had nothing to do with the fact that he was a repeat offender in DeAngelo not.
“It would have happened to any player, it has nothing to do with Tony,” he said.
After a slow start in their first NHL game on Thursday, it looked like rookies K’Andre Miller and Alexis Lafreniere had settled down at the pro-level pace in Saturday’s exclusion victory.
“They both played a much better hockey game, they played with weaker, I mean they were not intimidated,” Rangers coach David Quinn said. ‘It’s a tough team to play, we played them. It’s a man’s game every time you play the islanders and that the two guys should step forward and not be intimidated and play with the passion and swing with which they played is a wonderful sign for us. ”
Buchnevich achieved his career highs with a single game with two goals and three points in the win. He also led all skaters by five strokes and gave a plus-two score.