TAKEAWAYS
- You could tell what kind of night Sorokin was going to have on his second save of the game. After Tony DeAngelo thwarted a two-on-one, Connor McDavid, whose 20-game point streak was snapped in the loss, fed Zach Hyman from below the goal line, giving the former 50-goal scorer a point-blank opportunity that Sorokin swallowed up.
“You can tell when he's on," Mathew Barzal said. "But there's not many nights he's not."
That was one of many quality saves for Sorokin, who was aggressive in challenging McDavid at the top of his crease and going for a pair of aggressive pokechecks on Hyman and Curtis Lazar. When it was all said and done Sorokin stopped all five shots from McDavid, all four from Hyman, two from Leon Draisaitl and six from Evan Bouchard. Sorokin usually downplays shutouts, but even he felt Thursday’s was a cut above.
“It's a big shutout against best player in the league,” Sorokin said.
As good as Sorokin and the Isles defensive structure was, the Isles caught a pair of breaks on Thursday. Bouchard rang a puck off the post on an Oilers third period power play, which briefly fooled the refs and goal judge before being reviewed and waved off. Draisaitl also had an open net with 34.3 seconds to play in the third period, but shot the puck through the crease, off the post and out.
It was an A+ bounce-back game for Sorokin, who allowed a season-high five goals on Tuesday in Winnipeg. Even for the Islanders, who have become accustomed to a certain standard of goaltending, it hasn’t gotten old.
“There's not enough words to describe how good that guy is,” Barzal said. “Day in day out for us, his commitment to being a pro, it's his entire life. On the road, you find him in the gym when we get into a new city or early in the morning on an off day, he's stretching and working out, and that's just who he is, man. He just ready to play at all times. And he really is the best in the world.”
