About 10 minutes after the Islanders finished playing their preseason opener on Sunday, the area around Maxim Tsyplakov's cubicle in the Prudential Center visitors' locker room resembled a bedroom in need of cleaning.
Gear and equipment on the floor.
The hockey bag is open, but there is nothing around the bag.
Nearly all the other islanders were quickly packing their belongings.
Equipment manager Tsyplakov jokingly scolded them, saying they had to act quickly.
But everyone could give him some favors.
After all, this was his first game in North America.
Tsyplakov, a winger who has played his entire career in the KHL, came into camp as perhaps the team's most unknown player.
A preseason game is just another data point, not a particularly strong one, but the situation became a bit clearer after the Russian skated for 12 minutes, 21 seconds in the Isles' 4-2 win over the Devils.
“The first shift was a little bit difficult, I think the first and second shifts were not very good because the puck was loose,” Tsyplakov said. “After that it was a lot better.” [I] It's okay because I know how to play.”
Indeed, the night looked set to go badly for Tsyplakov with his first substitution, as he lost the puck on the penalty kill, which led directly to Nico Hischier's goal.
But as the game went on, he made up for that by flashing his skills as a power forward, protecting the puck well and providing a smooth, no-look assist on Julien Gauthier's goal in the second period.
“I know my strategy,” Tsyplakov said of the assist that came off a three-on-one rush. “I had to make it look like I was going to shoot, and the defense trusted me. I can pass.”
It's still early to say what Tsyplakov will do based on training camp practices and Sunday night's game, but he'll add some presence and physicality in front of the basket to the lineup, but it's unclear where in the lineup it would make sense to include him and to what extent.
But during training camp, teammates were impressed with how Chiplakov played deeper.
“He's a big guy, so he's pretty hard to move,” Alexander Romanov said earlier this week. “He's got speed and power.”
“He's really strong,” Noah Dobson said. “He's like a bull. He's big and fat and knows how to defend himself really well. He's going to be tough to handle. [Anders Lee] “Low down, in front of the net, he's a burden. Hard to deal with.”
I spend my summers here, [he] “He's been everything he was advertised to be,” Kyle Palmieri said. “You could tell from watching him play that he was going to be a big, strong guy. He's been really fun to watch. Obviously, the first couple of days of camp, he hasn't done a lot of line rushing or anything like that. With him, I think there's a lot to like from watching him play the last couple weeks.”
Tsyplakov also played on both the power play and penalty kill Sunday, but the penalty kick clearly didn't go as planned.
Roy blamed himself for Tsyplakov not doing four-on-five drills at camp.
All in all, it's an encouraging, if imperfect, debut.
That's just fine for the Islanders, who are hoping to acquire Tsyplakov, an effective, goal-scoring middle-six winger, on a one-year contract this season for just $950,000 before he becomes a restricted free agent.
Don't be put off by the contract period.
Tsyplakov spent the summer working with an English teacher in Moscow to improve his English skills.
This is where he wants to be.
“It gives me a big opportunity,” he said at rookie camp. “I want to play major league hockey. And [to be] I work with Patrick.”
