After the Islanders went the first 14 days of training camp without their superstar netminder, Ilya Sorokin came onto the ice for practice Thursday looking no worse for wear.

This juncture one week from the start of the regular season marked a critical step in the netminder’s recovery from back surgery as he was a full participant in practice and reported feeling good after the fact.

Opening night, here we come?

“I do everything to be ready and the head coach says who plays on opening night,” Sorokin said in his first public comments since the end of last season. “It’s his business. My business is to do all things so my body and my head will be ready.”

The timing and nature of Sorokin’s surgery, which became public only by accident, is not known, though the goaltender did make reference Thursday to the staff doing a great job over the last two months.

Oct. 10 against Utah, however, is somewhat of an artificial deadline, and likely not one to which the Islanders will adhere if there is any doubt at all about Sorokin’s status.

They are keeping the plan held tight — coach Patrick Roy would not say whether Sorokin will get any time in Friday’s preseason finale against the Rangers — but Semyon Varlamov is more than capable of handling a No. 1 workload at the start of the season if necessary.

“We’re just gonna go day by day,” Roy said. “Between you and I, I can’t say more than that, cause we don’t know what tomorrow will be. So I’d rather keep it day by day and we’ll see how he is. We’re gonna give him his time, no doubt about it.”

That is the only logical approach to take with the franchise netminder, who is in the first of an eight-year contract, meaning there are ramifications far beyond the here and now of winning games in October.

The Islanders don’t want to be quite as dependent on goaltending as they have been, and their defensive improvement at the end of last season combined with a healthy blue line begets optimism on that front.

But every person in the building is well aware of the importance attached to Sorokin’s recovery — both from surgery and from a 2023-24 season in which he lost the net to Varlamov down the stretch.

Sorokin’s .908 save percentage, while far from disastrous, marked his worst as a professional since 2014-15, when he was in his third season with Metallurg Novokuznetsk in the KHL.

For a player who had been consistently excellent in both Russia and the NHL, it was jarring.

“Everybody wants to be better,” Sorokin said. “If you don’t want to be better, you can’t be a professional player. Last season is in the past. I just try to focus on small details. Our game is a summary of small details. If you do the small details right, it’s going to [help your game].”

Opening night or not, nothing would help the Islanders more than Sorokin being back to his full self. The Islanders have taken pains to invest in the position with Sorokin and Varlamov.

A steady presence in net for all 82 games would be a foundation for Roy to build on.

“That’s one of the best tandems in the league,” Ryan Pulock said. “So when you know every single night that you can put either guy in and that gives you a good chance to win, that’s obviously pretty important. We believe in both of those guys so much, have so much confidence playing in front of them. Obviously just great to see Sorokie back with us and closer to game action.”