(EAST MEADOW, NY) Sunday morning in the distant suburbs of New York. Patrick Roy hits the ice for his first practice at the helm of the Islanders, less than 24 hours after being officially named head coach.
The exercises have barely started a minute before he interrupts the activities to give – shout – more details. “We need to be good at this,” he tells his men.
The exercises resume, with Roy’s voice as a musical soundtrack, which arrives with the energy we know from him. An energy that can be felt in the exercises… The bay windows of the Northwell Health Ice Center are shaking, something rarely seen during game morning practices, which are generally more moderate in intensity.
Then, Roy launches new explanations. “Bolduc, that’s not your job!” », he shouts. In French. A moment that startled the half-dozen Quebecers on site to cover the training, because English is the working language in the NHL.
The Bolduc in question, Samuel, was a bit amused once in the locker room. French, there was also “a little in the speech before. He named Quebecers with their French name. It was the first time I heard a coach call Jean-Gabriel by his first name! »
PHOTO GUILLAUME LEFRANÇOIS, THE PRESS
Patrick Roy, offering explanations during training
Reaction from Jean-Gabriel, Pageau in this case. “I think there are guys who didn’t even know that my full name is Jean-Gabriel! “, he jokes.
But regardless of the language, the message was crystal clear. The Islanders have won just two of their last 10 games, are slowly but surely slipping into the playoff race, and that’s why Lou Lamoriello dropped a bombshell on the hockey world by hiring Roy to replace Lane Lambert.
He seems very intense, I sense he doesn’t like to lose.
Scott Mayfield, Islanders defenseman
His colleague on the blue line, Noah Dobson, noted that Roy “brings a lot of intensity, passion, energy. The group seemed energized. »
Training began around 10:15 a.m., first with a few minutes of speech from Roy to his men at center ice. At 10:32 a.m., Roy signaled the end of the exercise and immediately retreated to the locker room. An exercise at the end of which the journalists looked at each other, wondering if such a level of intensity was sustainable in the long term. Martin St-Louis has already explained that a head coach has a certain number of “cartridges” with his players, and one had to wonder if he had used one for this first contact with his men.
Roy didn’t want to go there. “It’s just a matter of dissecting the way we want to play,” he calmly explained in a crowded conference room. We worked on our zone exits, on the first portion of zone defense, to have a supporting player. Everything we try to put into practice today was with the aim of building something step by step. »
For Pageau, the effect was immediate. “I certainly appreciate that he is passionate like that, involved in training. It proves that he is determined to help us, believes the Gatineau resident. He sees something, he says it right away, he doesn’t wait, and he says it so that the whole group hears it and everyone can adjust. His message is clear and everyone appreciates it. »
Win at all costs
The photo of a freshly shaven Patrick Roy, which accompanied the announcement of his hiring by the Islanders, did not go unnoticed on Saturday. Roy wore a beard during his last public appearances, but the obligation to be shaved is one of the many rules in the book that we guess is Lou Lamoriello’s imagination.
“I told the players that it was one of the hardest things from the moment I accepted the job!” laughed Roy, in front of the cameras. But when I met Lou Lamoriello, I was impressed with the individual. It’s so easy to respect the man, his values, and to see his desire to win. In the end, it wasn’t that hard to shave it! »
Roy brought this back to victory, because it’s the concept that follows him everywhere. As a player, he won the Stanley Cup four times. He didn’t achieve it in three years behind the Avalanche bench, but led a heavily neglected team to the playoffs in his first season, a series that ended with an overtime loss in Game 7. Roy also began and ended his career with the Remparts with victories in the Memorial Cup (2006 and 2023).
These victories left their mark on the man. He also returned to what three of the four coaches with whom he won, Bob Hartley, Marc Crawford and Jacques Demers, instilled in him. The forgotten one being Jean Perron, for those who are wondering.
“I want it to be a partnership. The players must be involved, he insisted. If they don’t understand something, I want them to say it,” he explained.
During the exercise, each of his explanations ended with a “Does that make sense?” » (does that make sense?), although the question seemed more rhetorical than real.
“I’m doing what Jacques did in 1993, and that’s working together. Jacques said: we’re going to surprise everyone, we’re going to win the Stanley Cup. We looked at each other and said to ourselves: did he analyze our training well? But he believed in us and he wanted us to believe in us. »
Pageau was clearly in the camp of the convinced. “Perhaps we had drifted away from our identity recently. When you played against the Islanders, they were a tough team to play against, it was tough to get points. From our first training this morning, he managed to achieve that, and his message was clear on what it will take if we want to win. »
It starts tonight against the Stars, at 7:30 p.m.