The Story of Ilya Sorokin

Ilya Sorokin has quickly risen to the upper echelon of the NHL, as the Islanders goaltender only needed two-and-a-half seasons to earn an all-star designation.
New York Islanders fans know all about his play since arriving in North America in 2020, but what about Sorokin's life as a youth player in Russia?

How about the fact that Sorokin did not initially play goalie when he first started playing hockey in Mezhdurechensk. As opposed to stopping goals, Sorokin was trying to score them as a forward from age five to age seven.
"I don't know why I did it," he said of the switch to goalie.
When talking about Sorokin, Casey Cizikas said that when he played goalie for the first time as a youth player that he let in 13 goals. Sorokin doesn't remember the score of his first game, but expressed a similar sentiment.
"It wasn't good," he joked.

Thankfully for Sorokin - and ultimately the Islanders - he stuck with it.
Sorokin grew up a fan of Marc-Andre Fleury, Evgeni Nabokov and Martin Brodeur as childhood goalie idols. The NHL is more accessible now than it's ever been worldwide thanks to streaming and social media, but Sorokin's first exposures to it mimic a lot of his peers, both in North America and Russia.
"I had a disc of Don Cherry highlights," Sorokin said. "I always watched the goalies make saves and people score some great goals."
Even with Don Cherry videos, video games and pretending to be Sidney Crosby in street hockey games, the NHL still felt a world away.
The Russian youth hockey system is more akin to an English soccer academy than a North American junior league. The KHL and its minor league, the MHL, have teams from the professional ranks down to the youth level, so players stay in their organizations, and work up to the top leagues, as opposed to players getting drafted in juniors and then again by NHL organizations.
If a region doesn't have a KHL or MHL team, it's common for players to move to a bigger city. In Canada, players uproot their lives at 16 to play in the WHL, OHL or QMJHL. Sorokin said his first hockey-related move came at 12, moving a couple hours away from home from Mezhdurechensk to Novokuznetsk, where Metallurg Novokuznetsk is based.
"In Metallurg they have KHL team and more of chance to start playing in KHL," Sorokin said.
Sorokin said he was initially homesick living in a dormitory, but thinks the experience helped him become mentally tougher. He also credits the work of goalie coach Nikolai Alexandrovich with helping him develop of his game and later helping him get to the KHL.
"First couple of years it was hard because you're 12, you want to go home," Sorokin said. "It makes you stronger and after you get older, you make friends, new friends and you start to feel better."

As a teenager, he'd play 20-30 games in a season and just like Canada, there are long bus rides. Semyon Varlamov, who went through a similar system growing up, remembered three-to-four-hour bus rides into Moscow - which he thinks has the worst traffic in the world - to play as a teenager. Varlamov was also a part of a special school program where all the hockey players would be in the same classes together, practice together and have one day off a week.
Sorokin said the longest bus ride he took for hockey was an 18-20 hour ride to Kazakhstan.
"It was not bad for kids. It was a fun time," Sorokin said. "Very good time, very good memories."
Sorokin debuted in the KHL as a 17-year-old with Metallurg, playing three seasons before being traded to CSKA Moscow, where he'd go on to become one of the top netminders in Russia, winning a Gagarin Cup in 2019.
"He was unreal in the KHL," Carolina Hurricanes winger Andrei Svechnikov said.
Sorokin was a multiple time all-star in the KHL, participating in enough that he can't remember whether it was three times or four. He does remember that while it's an honor, it's not always a fun experience for goalies, facing off against uncontested breakaways and two-on-nones. Sorokin tried to play it cool during his introduction ahead of the Tendy Tandem event, but eventually cracked and burst into a big smile instead.

Since coming to North America, starting with a lot of practice sessions in the bubble with the Islanders, as well as daily English lessons, Sorokin has adapted quickly. His 14 shutouts lead the league since he entered it in the 2020-21 season and off the ice.
"For the few months after the KHL it's like new league and a new world for you," Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy said. "So obviously it's tough, but now he's a man now. He's having a pretty good year and last year he was pretty good, so I'm happy for him."
Sorokin leaned on friend and New York Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin. Sorokin is the Godfather to Shesterkin's son. They spent Christmas together with Alex Romanov and Sorokin and Shesterkin vacationed together in Miami before the all-star festivities.
Sorokin seemingly made a few friend at All-Star Weekend, becoming buddies with Sergei Ovechkin, the four-year-old son of Alex Ovechkin. With Ovechkin filming the whole thing on his phone, Sorokin let Ovi Jr. score a couple of goals on him during warmups. Ovechkin later told the press that the goaltender was the best babysitter at All-Star Weekend.
"He wanted to score me all day today and when he scored five goals, we became best friends," Sorokin said with a laugh.

Sorokin already knew Ovechkin a little from the Russian national team, but was excited to meet some of the other NHL All-Stars, mainly Crosby. That was a big thrill for the netminder, who had come a long way from pretending to be the Penguins player when playing street hockey in Russia.
If there was another signifier of how far Sorokin's come, it was his comfortability to do an in-arena interview on the ice at the skills competition. The Islanders netminder has worked on his English in tandem with his goaltending.
"He puts a lot of time and effort in," Brock Nelson said. "I remember the first time he came over I think it was in the bubble and I remember he was just saying he was trying to learn some English to make things easier. And you see that and then you appreciate him trying to get to whatever level he knows. Since that day, he's gotten better and better and chimes in more often and he's a funny guy."
Perhaps the only thing that didn't go well for Sorokin on All-Star Weekend was the distance shooting in the Tendy Tandem. Thankfully Sorokin turned his attention to stopping the puck 20 years ago, a decision that laid the foundation for an All-Star appearance today.