Islanders’ Mathieu Darche denies Patrick Roy locker room speculation after firing

The New York Islanders made a massive change right before the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Head coach Patrick Roy was fired with only four games remaining in the regular season. New York is one point out of a playoff spot with four games left, and it will be up to veteran coach Pete DeBoer to get them into the postseason.

This move came on the back of speculation regarding Roy. Many outside observers felt the Hall of Fame former goaltender had lost his locker room. Speaking to the media on Monday, Darche put that noise to rest.

“Patrick hasn’t lost the room. It wasn’t about [that] guys don’t want to play for him, by any means. Guys respected Patrick a ton. Again, we just wanted to move it forward from where the things have been trending,” the Islanders general manager said, via ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski.

The Islanders enter play on Tuesday having lost four games in a row and five of their last seven. Darche has elected to turn things over to DeBoer, who has a proven track record of postseason hockey. In fact, he coached the Dallas Stars to the Western Conference Finals in all three seasons of his tenure in the Lone Star State.

New York is not the only franchise to make a change this late in the season. The Vegas Golden Knights fired Bruce Cassidy on March 29th, replacing him with John Tortorella. Vegas has won four of its five games with Tortorella behind the bench.

The Islanders hope to have similar success with DeBoer at the helm. How his team will respond to him certainly remains to be seen. In any event, the veteran bench boss will make his team debut on Thursday when the Islanders take on the Toronto Maple Leafs.

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