How has playing under Patrick Roy impacted Ilya Sorokin?
With the New York Islanders off to a relatively decent start to the 2025-26 season, many are wondering how the goaltending will hold up for the entire year, and hopefully get the team back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
However, the pressure of playing under a Hall of Fame goaltender such as Patrick Roy can be tough on anyone, especially someone of Isles netminder Ilya Sorokin’s caliber. The young Russian has been relied upon to be the No. 1 guy, though his numbers have been topsy-turvy over the past couple of years.
On Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Arthur Staple joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to discuss how Roy’s presence has impacted Sorokin’s game.
Arthur Staple: Patrick Roy has an impact on everybody. I remember talking to guys a couple of years back when Lou [Lamoriello] brought him in and just kind of marveling at this guy that everybody knows, no matter how young or how old you are as a hockey player, you’ve seen Patrick Roy play. You’ve seen the kind of fiery character he had as a player. You’ve probably seen some clips of him even coaching in juniors. So, I think people know the name and know the presence and know the resume. So, that has an impact in and of itself. As a goalie, I think sometimes it can have the opposite effect. I don’t know how you feel about it. He’s a guy who, if he’s giving you advice, you better take it. Because this guy is one of the two or three best goalies of all time, and maybe it’s not what the modern goalie is used to.
They made the smart move to go out and get David Rittich, who’s a guy who’s played some games in the NHL and has looked okay as a backup, to allow Sorokin to kind of get in a groove. They made a change of goalie coach, Piero Greco, who was brought in with Mitch Korn back when Lou was in charge. He’s out. Sergei Naumovs, who was Sorokin’s goalie coach over in the KHL, is now in as his day-to-day guy. So, I think there’s lots of little things here at work that are trying to put Sorokin in the best possible position to succeed.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…