After six AHL seasons featuring 161 regular-season games, a team rebranding, and three logos, Jakub Skarek will have a new home this fall.

The Bridgeport Islanders goaltender signed a new deal with Liiga club IFK Helsinki for next season. A fixture with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers-turned-Islanders going back to 2019, Skarek also got into his first two NHL games this season with the New York Islanders after working his way through the organizational development chain with the ECHL’s Worcester Railers and Bridgeport. His time in Bridgeport ends with him just three games shy of franchise leader Wade Dubielewicz in games played by a Bridgeport goaltender.

IFK finished fourth in Liiga play this season, and one objective will be to help the club return to the Champions Hockey League for the first time since 2021-22. Now 25 years old, Skarek does possess Liiga experience. Before coming to North America, he played the 2018-19 campaign with Lahti Pelicans just after New York had taken him as a third-round selection in the 2018 NHL Draft.

This season Bridgeport went 15-50-4-3, posting one of the worst campaigns in AHL history in the post-1967 NHL expansion era when affiliation agreements became far more formalized. Bridgeport has missed the Calder Cup Playoffs three consecutive seasons. The team has a best-of-three series win in 2022 and a best-of-five series win in 2003; otherwise, Bridgeport has not won a best-of-seven series since its inaugural 2001-02 campaign that featured a run to the Calder Cup Finals.

New York announced April 22 that president and general manager Lou Lamoriello will not return next season. No other moves in the New York front office have been announced. New York also missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs while Worcester did not qualify for the Kelly Cup Playoffs. His son, Chris Lamoriello, has served as Bridgeport’s general manager since 2017 along with a dual role as New York’s assistant general manager.

With Skarek gone and two major positions still to be filled in the New York front office, one offseason task for the organization will be to sort out its goaltending depth chart to ease the workload on number-one netminder Ilya Sorokin, who played 61 games for New York this season.

Semyon Varlamov told the team website that he expects to be ready for training camp in September after a knee injury limited him to only 10 games. The 37-year-old last played Nov. 29.

Veteran Marcus Högberg, originally slated to handle part of Bridgeport’s goaltending responsibilities, was limited to 11 AHL games and spent much of his season on recall with New York; he has one more season to go on his two-year deal that he signed in May 2024. Tristan Lennox (0-5-0 | 4.12 | .853 with Bridgeport) and Henrik Tikkanen (6-18-3 | 4.12 | .865 with Bridgeport) also remain under contract. Lennox returned late in the season from a serious knee injury that cost him more than a year’s worth of action. Bridgeport had also signed veteran Hunter Miska to an AHL contract Jan. 11; however, the organization did disclose that contract’s length, and it is not confirmed whether that deal extends into next season.

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