{"id":232791,"date":"2025-10-22T21:02:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/232791\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T21:02:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:02:13","slug":"islanders-fire-goalie-coach-piero-greco-6-games-into-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/232791\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders fire goalie coach Piero Greco 6 games into the season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">EAST MEADOW, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/new-york-islanders\/2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/new-york-islanders\/2\" target=\"_blank\">New York Islanders<\/a> fired goaltending coach Piero Greco, making the change at an unorthodox time just six games into his seventh season with the team and after winning three in a row.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">General manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/mathieu-darche\/8468463\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/mathieu-darche\/8468463\" target=\"_blank\">Mathieu Darche<\/a> announced the abrupt decision Wednesday to part ways with Greco and promote Sergei Naumovs from Bridgeport of the American Hockey League. Naumovs, who is Latvian, has been in Bridgeport since May 2024 but has an extensive history coaching franchise goalie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/ilya-sorokin\/8478009\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/ilya-sorokin\/8478009\" target=\"_blank\">Ilya Sorokin<\/a> going back to their time together with CSKA Moscow in the KHL from 2018-20.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Sorokin\u2019s 3.90 goals-against average is second-worst and his .873 save percentage ranks fourth-worst in the NHL among netminders who have appeared in at least four games. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cPiero has done a great job for the organization for the last seven years,\u201d Darche said. \u201cWe just felt at this time it was the right timing to have a reset with our goalies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Darche said he did not seek input from Sorokin, who is in the second year of a $66 million contract that runs through 2032.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s my decision \u2014 it\u2019s not on the player,\u201d Darche said. \u201cI know he\u2019s had success with Sergei, and that\u2019s where we went. It\u2019s 100% my decision, and the goalie had nothing to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Other Islanders news and notes<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Injured forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/pierre-engvall\/8478115\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/pierre-engvall\/8478115\" target=\"_blank\">Pierre Engvall<\/a> had ankle surgery and is expected to miss the entire season, or roughly five to six months, according to Darche, who said goaltender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/semyon-varlamov\/8473575\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/semyon-varlamov\/8473575\" target=\"_blank\">Semyon Varlamov<\/a> continues to progress toward a return from knee surgery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">With some other players banged up and salary cap space at a premium, the Islanders put forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/marc-gatcomb\/8483553\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/marc-gatcomb\/8483553\" target=\"_blank\">Marc Gatcomb<\/a> on waivers. The 26-year-old had only dressed in one game so far this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EAST MEADOW, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 The New York Islanders fired goaltending coach Piero Greco, making the change at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-232791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}