It didn’t take the Islanders long to make a change in goaltending personnel.
A day after goaltending director Mitch Cone left the team to join the Predators, the Islanders announced that goaltending coach Chris Terreri from AHL’s Bridgeport would move to goaltending/scouting director.
The Islanders also announced that they have hired Sergei Naumov to replace Terreri as the AHL club’s goaltending coach, while Piero Greco will remain as the NHL team’s goaltending coach.
Terreri has a history with the school dating back to the early 1980s when Lou Lamoriello was coach at Providence College and has been with the organization since 2017-18.
Prior to that, he worked since 2001 with the Devils and their AHL affiliates in Lowell and Albany.
The hiring of Naumovs, who previously worked in the KHL, will provide a familiar face within the organization with Ilya Sorokin, who is coming off his worst season since transferring from Russia.
Naumovs was Sorokin’s goaltending coach during his final two seasons with CSKA Moscow from 2018-2020, when Sorokin had his best two seasons in the KHL.
He also worked with Russia’s 2022 Olympic team and has coached in Ukraine and Latvia before working in the KHL.
Sorokin, 28, finished second in Vezina Trophy voting last season but has a 3.01 goals-against average and a .908 save percentage this season. He started just one of the Islanders’ five playoff games, a first-round game against the Hurricanes, where he allowed three goals on 14 shots and was replaced in the third period of a Game 3 loss.
