Lou Lamoriello and Jacques Lemaire form the oldest manager duo in the National Hockey League. At the age of 81, Lamoriello is three years older than Lemaire to whom he entrusts special assignments on behalf of the New York Islanders. On Saturday, Lamoriello contacted Lemaire to tell him about Patrick Roy. But his decision had already been made. Roy would become his third head coach in his sixth season as general manager of the New York team.
Lamoriello is very loyal to the employees he appreciates. And they feel indebted to him when he asks them for services. Lemaire spent three stints behind the New Jersey Devils bench under Lamoriello.
Even if Lamoriello did not really consult him for the choice of Roy, Lemaire is delighted with Roy’s arrival with the Islanders.
“I am very proud to see Patrick with our organization!” says Lemaire on the phone from his home in Florida.
“Patrick is a leader, he has character. I barely managed him with the Canadian (a period of play during the 1984-1985 season). I didn’t get to know him much at that time, but I know what type of man he is.”
“He is a born winner who always wants to win. He enjoyed success in his early days behind the Colorado Avalanche bench and led the Quebec Remparts to the Memorial Cup last season. “He’s exactly the coach the Islanders need right now.”
Lack of regularity
Lemaire gives an example.
“You can’t beat a good team like the Toronto Maple Leafs and then lose to a weaker team,” he said.
What Lemaire is referring to has happened a lot for the Islanders this season. The most recent chapter was last week.
Winning the Leafs 4 to 3 in overtime, the Islanders lost the following game to the Nashville Predators by a score of 3 to 1. The New York team then suffered a scathing 5 to 0 defeat against the Minnesota Wild .
The slide continued with losses of 4 to 2 against the Winnipeg Jets and 4 to 3 in overtime against the Chicago Blackhawks, who were deprived of the services of Connor Bédard. This setback proved to be Lane Lambert’s swan song.
“It’s one thing to say that it takes this and that to win, but it’s an advantage when you’ve already done it,” continues Lemaire.
“Patrick will make the Islanders a more competitive team.”
Veterans in the dock
Without naming anyone, Lemaire emphasizes that the veterans of the Islanders, the players aged 27, 28 and over as he identifies them, do not deliver the goods.
At the start of the season, the Islanders had an average age of 29.2, which placed them sixth among the NHL’s oldest teams. The Pittsburgh Penguins were the oldest team with an average age of 30.2.
“Patrick is capable of rallying the troops and creating unity in the locker room,” says Lemaire.
“He’s someone who takes charge. It’s obvious that our players will respect him, given his track record.”
Lemaire got to know Lamoriello well before he hired him as head coach of the New Jersey Devils in 1993. That was when Lamoriello was head coach of the New Jersey Friars. Providence College, a position he held from 1968 to 1983 before becoming director of player personnel at the same institution from 1983 to 1987.
“Lou went on recruiting tours in Quebec and he followed our exploits with the Canadiens,” says the former great center player.
“We were talking about hockey and our vision of game was the same. He has always been highly impressed by the players and coaches who have made the Canadian successful over time.
Lemaire in 1995, Larry Robinson in 2000 and Pat Burns in 2003 gave him the three Stanley Cups he earned as CEO of the Devils.
For a reason that remains unclear, however, he dismissed Claude Julien despite a total of 102 points, with three games remaining in the 2005-2006 season.
Lamoriello has long-standing affinities with Quebec. In the 1960s, he was a baseball player-coach with a senior baseball team from Thetford-Mines. One of his teammates was Yvon Després, a great apostle of amateur sport in Trois-Rivières. He continued his merry way in the Cape Cod Baseball League, then he ended up at Providence College.
The series begins
The Islanders GM saw it snow. He has seen coaches of all kinds during his long career. He will deal with Roy’s temperament.
“Everyone has their own personality,” he told the site The Athletic.
“What I know is that he has the ability to lead a team. He is a coach at heart. He’s fiery, he loves the game and I think it’s great.”
True to form, Roy got straight to the point.
“The playoffs are starting for our team,” he commented.
“When you have three or four teams to catch up to, you don’t play like it’s the regular season. This is the approach we must have from now on.”