Mathieu Darche Sets Islanders New Direction With a Clear Goal

ELMONT, N.Y. — All around the UBS Club in UBS Arena, smiles were on faces. Laughs were had, and fans cheered and clapped. Select season ticket holders filled the room with assorted team personnel and media members. When the New York Islanders brought out Mathieu Darche, the pocket of fans gave him a warm welcome.

Then, over the course of a half-hour press conference, Darche laid out his modus operandi and goals for the franchise. With eight words, Darche charted the course for the summer ahead:

“I want to see a fast-paced team.”

Those eight words say it all. From a team built on more plodding, defensive structure, Darche will look to transform the core from an older, slower one into a high-flying team. That style is an exact match with what Head Coach Patrick Roy always stated he wanted.

That doesn’t mean the Islanders are going back to the high-flying days under Doug Weight, however. No, instead, the focus will be on defense first. Darche made that abundantly clear:

“By saying fast-paced, it doesn’t mean we’re playing offense, because you can’t win if you don’t defend. But playing defensive and defending are two different things. We want to attack. There’s nothing worse than a team that comes at you all the time. That’s what I want.”

Who’s On the Chopping Block:

If it’s a team built on speed, that’ll have to change the defensive corps in a major way. Of the current nine defensemen, the two slowest, on average, would be Ryan Pulock and Scott Mayfield.

The two righties are under contract until 2030 and hold full no-trade clauses, but with change coming, they’re now the top candidates for Darche to look to move. Pulock, in particular, could be at risk. Not only has his speed gone down, but his overall effectiveness has, too.

Again, as emphasized earlier this week, a lot of that is injury-related. Pulock’s dealt with multiple serious injuries in recent years, all of which have slowed him down as a player. For Mayfield, Roy chose to scratch him multiple times down the stretch. That alone says enough about how Roy viewed his fit in the system.

Who’s Safe, For Now:

Adam Boqvist and Noah Dobson are all but locks to be on the opening night roster. Both fit Darche’s description perfectly, along with Roy’s deployment. Both are team-controlled restricted free agents, so Darche will need to sign them first. Perhaps there’s even a role for pending free agent Tony DeAngelo, though as Darche made clear, being strong defensively matters most.

On the left side, nobody may believe this, but after this presser, it seems more likely that Adam Pelech will return. Yes, he’ll be 31 in October, but he has not lost a step in terms of his speed. While he may not be at his peak, he had far and away the best defensive impacts on the team. His fit with Dobson seemed perfect, and the two could be the opening night top pair. The only reason to ditch Pelech is if you become desperate for money and fail to move the other veterans on the chopping block.

Alexander Romanov is a big case study for Darche. The big, physical defenseman showed some excellent flashes, but too often he found himself on the ice for heavy chances against. He and DeAngelo had a strong first couple of weeks together before it came apart. Romanov’s speed isn’t anything overly special, but he has some strong bursts. It’ll be very interesting to see what type of contract Darche may give Romanov if he keeps the restricted free agent.

Darche’s Vision of Perennial Playoffs:

Elsewhere in his presser, Darche emphasized the success of this Islanders core, and explicitly said he believes this is a playoff team, it just needs some improvements. He specifically said the core of this team can, with some change, become “A perennial playoff team.”

He went so far as to say this past year’s team should’ve been a playoff team, but due to “circumstances,” they did not. The Islanders did, by analytics, have a stronger team than where they finished. They created a lot of chances, but they never finished them.

That’s where they need to improve. It’s true that Roy’s system did some really good things. It’s equally true that this team had terrible special teams. Both coaches from those units were fired, Darche announced.

Goalscoring and/or elite offensive threats are the biggest needs for this team. Hello, Mitch Marner and Nikolaj Ehlers. The Islanders are calling on line one. John Collins, who ran the search and represented Islanders Ownership during today’s presser, made it clear Darche will have full support and anything he needs to make this team competitive.

Landing one or both marquee free agents would go a long way toward that. Darche set forth an ambitious plan to transform the Islanders’ current core to a speed-based team, building off what he has here to work with.

It’s an exciting day on Long Island. Darche turned the page to a new chapter inside UBS Arena.