The challenge in front of Patrick Roy over the next week is almost completely unique.
Not only is Roy trying to make changes to the system and very philosophy by which the Islanders play, but he’s doing so amid a stretch in which the Islanders are playing every other day until their All-Star break begins on Sunday.
That means on days like Monday, when getting on the ice for practice normally would have been crucial to the Islanders, Roy focused on video and let the team spend time with their families, taking into account their long road trip last week.
Come February, when the Islanders play just four games in the month’s first 17 days, there will be more room for practice time.
But right now, games are coming as fast and furious as the changes.
“I have a different approach, different ways to play the game,” Roy said Tuesday before the Isles faced Vegas. “I think the guys are buying into it. I was just trying to go baby steps at the beginning — second quick and then teach that on the first day. Today we got more into it, we added more to our structure.”
Roy’s focus so far has been on what he calls second quick — adding extra support in the defensive zone to try and force turnovers — and cleaning up the team’s breakouts. There are bigger changes in store, too.
Roy wants the Islanders, who have generated much of their offense off the rush and rate towards the bottom of the league in puck possession, to get on the cycle and hold the puck more often.
He wants to see them cut down on turnovers as well, having cited multiple times that they allowed 17 shots off turnovers during a 3-2 win over Dallas in his first game.
The defensive zone, where the Isles have been structurally deficient all year, will look different.
“He wants us to move,” Jean-Gabriel Pageau told The Post. “I think the D joins the rush, in the neutral zone, he wants them moving. Skate with that puck. If there’s no play, come back and keep the puck. I think it’s gonna go a long way once we’re all on the same page to cut down or slim down on the shots we’re giving up. Since we have the puck, we can shoot it.”
It’s not just the circumstance that makes this a big adjustment. It’s the fact that Roy is really the first new coach the organization has had since Barry Trotz.
Lane Lambert made some tweaks to Trotz’s system, in particular allowing the defensemen more freedom to get up the ice, but as a longtime Trotz deputy, he was working from a similar blueprint.
Roy is putting an imprint on the Islanders that is very much distinctive.
“I think just trying to create,” Noah Dobson told The Post. “Getting more stops in the D zone, getting guys pinned, play stops so we can get the puck out and going in the O-zone. I think at times we’ve spent too much time in our own end — that’s an area we gotta keep getting better at. That’s definitely something he’s harped on.”
By the very nature of this process, the Islanders are not going to have everything fixed overnight.
During Roy’s first game against Dallas, the Isles looked at times like they didn’t quite know where to be because, well, they didn’t quite know where to be.
Roy and players alike said they started to see things get better over the course of that game. But it was still far from perfect.
And the schedule is doing the Islanders no favors. It is imperative for them to take full advantage of every minute of practice time they get.
“We need to practice like we’re gonna play our games — especially if you’re limited in the number of practices,” Roy said. “So we want to make sure that the details are perfect.
“Like I said today, I don’t want them to like the coaching staff because we let them do what they want. I want them to like the coaching staff because they believe we’re gonna make our team better. And that’s what I want.”