Andrew Gross: Islanders' Roy needs to stay on top of his guys as team gets back to work
Islanders coach Patrick Roy reacts during the first period against the Utah Mammoth at UBS Arena on Jan. 1, 2026. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Patrick Roy has a singular task between now and the puck dropping on Feb. 26 at Bell Centre in Montreal: Keep day upon day of practicing fresh for his players as the Islanders ramp back up after their Olympic break.
Because as happy as the Islanders players were on Tuesday to see each other, recount their vacations and go through an hour-long session at Northwell Health Ice Center in East Meadow focused on conditioning and skills, seven practices before facing the Canadiens may start to feel stale.
And stale practices are unproductive ones.
However, a refreshed Roy believes natural circumstances will prevent that.
“I think the situation we’re in will do it by itself,” Roy said. “I think we’re all excited to enter into that last stretch. We’re looking at the standings where we are and we know there’s going to be a lot of good hockey to be played. So I think that will motivate us.”
The Islanders (31-22-5), who went into the break having won five of seven, are third in the Metropolitan Division with 24 games remaining. They are one point behind the second-place Penguins, who have played two fewer games, and four points ahead of both the Blue Jackets, who have also played two fewer games and won seven straight, and the Capitals, who have 23 games left.
There was certainly joy — Roy’s favorite word — on the ice even as Roy and assistant coaches Bob Boughner, Ray Bennett and Benoit Desrosiers stayed off their skates, instead letting the Islanders’ conditioning coaches and goalie coach Sergei Naumovs run the session. All non-Olympian Islanders practiced with Bo Horvat (Canada) and Ondrej Palat (Czechia) still in Italy.
Smartly, Tuesday’s practice ended with an upbeat, competitive four-on-four scrimmage to keep the players engaged.
Mathew Barzal, one of the first Islanders to spring onto the ice for the 2 p.m. practice, said he was looking forward to resuming practice even as he went to Arizona with several teammates for a golf tournament.
“Definitely,” Barzal said. “I took a moment when we got back. I was in the dressing room kind of by myself and you could hear laughs and people chattering in the lounge so everyone was excited to get back, just telling some stories about the break. It’s nice to see everybody.”
Roy said he and his assistant coaches will all be back on the ice on Wednesday as the team begins to work on systems’ play again.
How the sessions are structured will be crucial to keeping the players engaged, no matter how motivated they are by the upcoming playoff push.
It’s the same challenge as training camp when, typically, the players tire quickly of the daily drills, conditioning skates and scrimmages and yearn for the chance to check an opponent.
“The key is this week to work on a bit of our structure, a bit of our conditioning at the beginning and see how it goes,” Roy said.
And if he sees it becoming stale, Roy must change on the fly. It’s his most important task until he actually gets to coach a game again.
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.
