RALEIGH, N.C. — Unfortunately for Patrick Roy, the last five games of the Islanders’ regular season have become a referendum on his ongoing tenure as Islanders coach.
The team entered Saturday night’s match against the Metropolitan Division-leading Hurricanes in the midst of a damaging downward spiral that could turn into a full-blown collapse from playoff contention.
And Roy himself, whether inadvertently or not, pointed out how his role in the Islanders’ slide — they had lost six of nine coming into Saturday’s match — was part and parcel when he said after Friday night’s 4-1 defeat to the Flyers at UBS Arena that “I’ll take part of the blame for the first period. I have a job to do to make sure our team is ready.”
The Islanders were not, not by any stretch. And by the time they resume playing on Thursday hosting the Maple Leafs they could easily be out of a playoff spot they’ve essentially held since Dec. 4.
Could this all cost Roy his job? There’s no real way to know that now since that decision lies with first-year general manager Mathieu Darche and none of us have seen yet how reactively he responds to failure. We do know one of the first things Darche said at his introductory press conference was that Roy, a Lou Lamoriello hire, was returning. And the two French-Canadians have seemingly forged a good working relationship.
“He threw a couple of different line combinations out there,” Bo Horvat said after Friday’s defeat when asked by Newsday what he’s seen Roy doing to try and get the Islanders out of their untimely funk. “I think he’s trying to give us more ideas offensively. He’s doing what he can. But he can only say so much and do so much. It’s up to us to go out and execute it.”
For Saturday’s match, Roy inserted defenseman Isaiah George for Adam Boqvist for the first time since George was recalled from the Islanders’ AHL affiliate in Bridgeport on March 26 and assigned Ryan Pulock to quarterback the second power-play unit instead of Boqvist. Max Shabanov was re-inserted onto Brayden Schenn’s line after being a healthy scratch the previous seven games and having played just twice since Jan. 31. Struggling Ondrej Palat was dropped to the fourth line with Kyle MacLean coming out of the lineup.
Still left for Roy to try is reuniting Horvat with Mathew Barzal. Just a helpful suggestion.
If the Islanders do miss the playoffs, it will be a second straight time in two full seasons under Roy. He took over for the overmatched Lane Lambert on Jan. 20, 2024 and guided the Islanders to a 20-12-5 finish as they qualified for the playoffs before losing in five games to the Hurricanes.
Overall, Roy entered Saturday 97-77-22 with the Islanders after going 130-92-24 over three seasons — and one playoff appearance — with the Avalanche from 2013-16.
There’s plenty to like about the Hall of Fame goalie, including the presence he brings as one of the game’s greats. That does mean something to his players. But he’s also re-invented himself in his second NHL job, throwing himself into the hard work and checking the ego he admits he had in his first go-round.
He’s a motivator trying to get his players to play with a joy for the game. He’s often also transparently honest and, full disclosure, has a great working relationship with the media because of the respect he shows and receives in return.
Newsday asked Roy following Friday’s loss to expand on his thought he could have done more.
“Sometimes you just make sure you say a few words in the room after the meeting,” Roy said. “I thought the team was ready to play a strong game and I could have done a better job approaching the guys and saying a few things. That was an important game for us. They’re all going to be important games, no kidding. I just feel like I could have done a better job, period.”
Newsday then asked prior to Saturday’s match what Roy was sensing from his group.
“They look good,” the always-positive Roy said. “It’s pretty quiet and everybody is a bit nervous. I think it’s good to be nervous. That means you care.”
Should Roy be nervous about his job? Logically, that would seem to be a yes if he can’t coax a playoff appearance out of the team. Especially in a season when rookie defenseman Matthew Schaefer has had such a positive impact, bursting quickly into a game-changing superstar, and goalie Ilya Sorokin, who made his 11th straight appearance on Saturday, is a Vezina Trophy candidate.
If nothing else, these last five games have become a referendum.
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.