It was a seemingly tense Patrick Roy who appeared in front of the cameras on Tuesday noon, after the Islanders’ morning practice at the Bell Centre, in preparation for the evening duel against the Canadian.
Posted at 2:22 p.m.
Usually talkative with the Quebec media since his return behind the Islanders bench, the head coach stuck to sober answers and straight to the point during his press briefing of some eight minutes.
This is a situation unlike that of last January, when he arrived in Montreal barely five days after being hired. The Habs rolled out the red carpet for him: pre-match press briefing in the conference room, video tribute during the national anthem.
To this end, we hardly felt moved by the prospect of reconnecting with the Bell Centre. “It might be a little different from last season, but it’s still special. I played 10 years here, I have good memories and it’s always special to come back,” he first said, in English. He will repeat the same answer in French, while recalling the two Stanley Cups won, but let’s say that it was not delivered with his enthusiasm for special occasions.
Bad memories
It must be said that, on the one hand, his team reacted very badly in this particular context of January 25. Coincidence or not, after 12 minutes, the Canadian led 3-0. It must be said that the Montrealers then counted on Sean Monahan at the helm of the second trio, which gave the CH a center line in the direction of the world, but we digress.
Roy also remembers the start of the match very well. “They have lost their last two games and they will want a good start. “That’s what they did the last time we came here,” he said.
On the other hand, the Islanders are coming to town in a much more tense context than 10 months ago. At the time there was still the usual enthusiasm that comes with hiring a new coach. They were then two small points from a place in the playoffs.
As of Tuesday morning, they were three points shy of the goal, but with a myriad of clubs ahead of them, and more games played than the Rangers, Sabres, Lightning and Blue Jackets, among those they are trying to overtake. Before beating Buffalo on Saturday, they had lost six of their previous seven games.
But above all, the failures of the club, which has little promise of reconstruction to sell to its supporters, generate discontent. Last Wednesday, while the Islanders were defeated 6-3 by the Bruins, the fans started chanting “ Fire Lou.” We are not talking here about Mr. Reed, Dobbs or Frazier, but rather about Lou Lamoriello, GM of the Islanders, who gave Roy one of the oldest teams in the NHL.
“I don’t know, I don’t read the media, I can’t say if it’s heating up or it’s not heating up,” he first said, before it was explained that the noise in question was not came not from the media, but from the fans in the stands of the UBS Arena.
“We are focusing on our game,” he simply replied.
Aging team
Offensively, the New Yorkers are slowly getting back on track, after being shut out four times in the first 10 games of the season; here they are 27es in the NHL, with 2.56 goals per game. The defensive record is better (2.96 goals allowed, 12es in the NHL). It is, moreover, an adequate team at 5 against 5, but weighed down by special teams (31e in both categories).
The problem is mainly one of age. At the start of the season, the Islanders came to 4e rank of the oldest clubs. The team’s top three scorers, Kyle Palmieri, Anders Lee and Brock Nelson, are 33, 33 and 34 years old respectively. To quote Pope John Paul II, who probably did not expect to find himself in a text on the Islanders on a Tuesday in December, the future begins today, not tomorrow.
“Every team will feel the urgency to win,” Roy recalled. There isn’t a team that doesn’t want to make the playoffs. The important thing is not to dig ourselves into a hole and hope that things go our way to have a winning streak. »
Evil tongues will say that by showing up at the Bell Center against the penultimate team in the general classification, they are at the right address, but we will not go there.
