It appears that the New York Islanders may be closing in on a solution to the Ilya Sorokin saga.
With the NHL and NHLPA finalizing a return-to-play agreement and CBA extension, it’s been reported that unsigned draft picks will be able to sign for the remainder of the 2019-20 season, but will not be able to play.
League sources say unsigned draft choices like Ilya Sorokin CAN sign to burn their entry-level years for 2019-20 but are NOT permitted to play in the RTP scenario next month.
Now it's up to #Isles and Sorokin whether they can agree to do so.
Just because Sorokin can sign, however, doesn’t necessarily mean he will. From his perspective, he probably doesn’t want to wait until whenever the 2020-21 season starts, which is likely at least six months away, to be able to get back into game action.
From New York’s perspective, I'm sure they wouldn’t hesitate to sign him if the opportunity was there, but it also creates an interesting situation for the team. While Sorokin wouldn’t actually be able to suit up for the Islanders this year, he would be able to burn his one-year entry-level contract, meaning he’d be eligible for a new contract in the offseason. We essentially saw this exact scenario play out with Nikita Gusev last season, who signed with Vegas, didn’t play a game with the Golden Knights, then was traded to New Jersey and signed to a two-year deal worth $4.5 million per season, all before ever actually playing a game in the NHL.
I’m not trying to be negative here, because Sorokin signing is a win in itself. But if you think the Islanders are in a bad spot with the salary cap now, just wait until they’d have to re-sign Sorokin. It’s not unreasonable to think he could also command somewhere between $4 and $5 million on a short-term deal, just based on what he’s been able to do in the KHL.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all unfolds. It feels like we’ve been close to an endpoint before but perhaps this time, we’ll finally see the Islanders and Sorokin make things official.
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Here’s today’s poll question (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
Do you think we'll see a contract between Ilya Sorokin and the Islanders in the near future?
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