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An Islanders goalie signed a long-term contract and got hurt.
Rick DiPietro has heard that one before.
“If older Rick could go back and talk to young, dumb Rick, he would tell him to just take your time and relax,” DiPietro told The Post in a phone call Tuesday. “There’ll still be games when you get back.”
He was speaking in the context of Ilya Sorokin, who underwent back surgery this summer and is expected to return sometime during training camp.
The specifics of Sorokin’s procedure, as well as its timing, are unknown, but general manager Lou Lamoriello has said Sorokin is skating on his own and isn’t expected to miss time in the regular season.
The Russian superstar is in the first year of an eight-year, $66 million contract signed in July 2023, and the Islanders’ fortunes largely hinge on both his availability and level of play.
DiPietro, who signed a 15-year deal with the Isles in 2006 and saw his career derailed by a series of injuries — mainly to his knee and hip — can relate to that more directly than most.
His advice: Don’t rush it.
“This is not one of those ones midway through the season, you’re trying to get back because it’s a playoff push,” DiPietro, who hosts a morning show with Dave Rothenberg on 98.7 ESPN Radio, said. “If I were to advise him, I would say get to 100 percent. The reason why you had whatever [surgery] you had done was to get back to 100 percent because once the season starts and you start grinding — as you start is the best you’ll feel the entire season. So I would say get to 100 percent, focus on your body, focus on strengthening whatever the area is, all those muscles that are attached to where he got the work done. And then from there, once you take that out of the gym and all the physical therapy stuff, he’s got his goalie coach [Sergei Naumovs] here now, so a lot of work with him.
“And then you take those steps to go from working with your goalie coach, seeing pucks, getting your timing right to now, all of a sudden, incorporate more game-like stuff. Scrambles in front of the net, that was always, for me, the hardest part. That was what took me the longest to get back was all the broken plays. You can try but it’s different. The amount of traffic and bumping and deflections, loose pucks and rebounds that you have during a game is tough to recreate in practice.”
The recent history of goalies and back surgery is mixed.
Former Stars and Thrashers netminder Kari Lehtonen underwent two surgeries after the first was unsuccessful and continued to play at a high level for nine seasons with Dallas until retiring in 2018.
More recently, Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy missed 10 weeks last season after a successful microdiscectomy and had a career-worst .900 save percentage upon return.
“There was, I remember, there was a couple times that things just in my lower back got a little tight,” Lehtonen told The Post. “But then it got better after a couple days and I was able to continue and then the second season after [surgery] I did not have any sort of issues anymore. I think it was mostly strengthening little muscles around that area when they get shut down when you have surgery. Mine was in the lower back. So we worked on those little muscles around there. The amount of core things to just stabilize my back, I guess that carried the rest of my career.”
It’s not yet clear how the Islanders plan to handle the start of the season in net, but it would be less than surprising to see Semyon Varlamov take more work than usual early on, especially after he played excellent hockey down the stretch and in the playoffs last season.
Longer term, though, the franchise’s fortunes are tied to Sorokin, whose salary is currently fourth among active goaltenders.
“It’s more than the pressure from the fans or the pressure from the media and answering the questions,” DiPietro said of the added expectation that comes with such a contract. “For me it was always the pressure to perform for my teammates, that was always the most important. I think the common misconception — having the chance now to do the radio and everything else — is to think that the athlete isn’t just as critical, usually more critical, of themselves than the fans are.
“When you struggle, everyone knows you struggle. You expect as a player — especially one of Sorokin’s caliber — to be one of the best goalies in the National Hockey League. He has the chance to be the best goalie in the National Hockey League. And when he doesn’t get that result, I’m sure he’s frustrated. It only gets magnified when you sign a deal like this and now you’re one of the focal points of the franchise.”
