The New York Islanders' fall from grace, which led to Patrick Roy's firing, was a tough look for the franchise. The team had some injury concerns, and their underlying numbers weren't great, but despite all that, Mathieu Darche made some bold moves at the trade deadline to build the team up for the playoffs. The problem is that it might all be wasted effort if Pete DeBoer doesn't find a way to win their four remaining games.
Everyone is pointing to Roy as the reason why the Islanders failed to show up down the stretch, but that could be giving the players an easy way out. It might be just a case of a coach who lost the room, according to former Islanders goaltender Rick DiPietro via DiPietro & Rothenberg.
“In the midst of it going sideways, they pan over to the bench, and [Roy] is just standing with his hands behind his back like he has run out of answers,” DiPietro ranted. “What exactly is he doing on the bench? It looks like a lot of nothing.”
Roy, as a player and a coach, is someone who always wears his heart on his sleeve and doesn't hide how he is feeling. If he felt like he had lost the team, his body language wasn't going to pretend like he had everything under control. DiPietro was likely saying what every Islanders fan saw when watching the broadcasts, but in a way, it was classic Patrick Roy to visibly give up on the team if they had already given up on him.
