Varlamov Starts After 676 Days and Two Knee Replacements in Islanders' 5-2 Loss

Semyon Varlamov is an NHL goaltender again, 676 days after he last started a game and after partial replacements in both knees. The 38-year-old New York Islanders netminder returned on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden, NHL.com reports, in a start his own teammates described as the kind that has never really been done before. The Islanders lost 5-2 to the Rangers, a scoreline that flatters the winners far more than the comeback story in the away crease.

What exactly did Varlamov come back from?

Two partial knee replacements and 22 months of rehabilitation, NHL.com reports. Varlamov’s last start before Tuesday came on November 29, 2024. He was not even declared injured until two games later, the New York Post reports, after backing up Ilya Sorokin and sitting through another game before the club began holding him out with what was first called a lower-body injury.

The comeback was staged carefully. Varlamov played two AHL games with Bridgeport in April and won both, allowing three goals in total, Gino Hard reports. Even six months ago, defenceman Ryan Pulock admitted, an NHL return was not guaranteed. On Tuesday it happened in the loudest building available, against the Islanders’ biggest rivals.

Why is a goaltender returning from knee replacements so unusual?

Because no position in the sport taxes knees like goaltending does. A skater with repaired knees can manage stride and ice time. A goaltender drops into the butterfly, seals the ice with his pads, and pushes laterally across the crease hundreds of times a night, loading the joint on every single save. Replacement parts are built for walking and cycling, not for that.

That is why the framing around Varlamov is first-of-its-kind. He is believed to be the first player to resume an NHL career after both knees were partially replaced, Gino Hard reports, and Jean-Gabriel Pageau said Varlamov carried himself through rehab as a man intent on being exactly that first. In a league where Connor Hellebuyck’s holdout has left Winnipeg arguing over who guards its net, the Islanders’ crease debate is the opposite problem: a veteran who refused to accept that his career was over.

How did he actually play in the 5-2 loss?

Better than the scoreline, worse than his history in the building. The first shot Varlamov faced beat him, Oliver Bjorkstrand scoring over his glove in the first period, and Lafreniere added another early in the second, The Hockey News reports. The Islanders fought back to 2-2, Bjorkstrand’s second goal restored the Rangers’ lead late in the second period, and Varlamov made 10 third-period saves to keep it 3-2 until Lafreniere’s two empty-net goals closed the night, NHL.com reports.

His career numbers at the Garden explain why the Islanders chose this spot. Varlamov arrived with a 5-1-0 record in six Islanders starts in the building, a .950 save percentage, a 1.55 goals-against average and four shutouts, NHL.com reports. He did not add to them, but a 19-save night with no physical setback is the result the medical story needed, much as Alex Ovechkin’s farewell season is being staged as a celebration of endurance in Washington this month.

What did Varlamov and his coach say afterwards?

Varlamov admitted the warm-up was emotional and that a thousand thoughts ran through his head before the game, the Post reports. His health verdict was the line that mattered: he said he finished feeling completely fine, at full strength, with nothing holding him back, The Hockey News reports.

Head coach Pete DeBoer called him a warrior and said the start was deliberate. He did not want Varlamov sitting for two or three weeks and going cold, and he said what he saw in preseason convinced him the Islanders have two very good goaltenders, NHL.com reports. That is a rotation plan, not a tribute act, and it lands the same week Ovechkin’s sons introduced him at his final home opener, a reminder that this season keeps producing veteran moments with substance underneath them.

What happens next for Varlamov?

The test moves from one night to a workload. A tandem with Sorokin only works if Varlamov can start every week or so without his knees objecting the next morning, and DeBoer has said he will be comfortable using either man in any building. The Islanders also left the Garden with a worry in front of him: defenceman Alexander Romanov suffered an undisclosed injury in the game and was still being evaluated, The Hockey News reports.

For one night, though, the result is secondary, and even the officiating sideshows elsewhere in the league this week, such as Fraser Minten arguing his way out of a teammate’s penalty, cannot match it. A 38-year-old with two replaced knees started an NHL rivalry game 676 days after his last one. Whether it becomes a season or stays a single night, it has already changed what teams will tell the next veteran facing the same surgery.