In The Room: Roy Calls Out the Islanders Mentality; MacLean Takes Blame

PITTSBURGH — The New York Islanders fell behind 2-0 in the second period on a Michael Bunting power play goal. While not ideal, that shouldn’t have been cause for concern, aside from the obvious penalty kill issues.

However, Head Coach Patrick Roy took aim and blasted his team’s mentality after the goal, calling them mentally weak. Don’t just take my words for it, take his:

“I just felt that, after we gave up that second goal, we were not mentally strong enough. I mean, we have to,” he stopped himself briefly, then continued “It’s just a goal. I mean, we were down two. In this league, two goals, it’s nothing.”

Woof. Roy lit the team on fire with that quote. He’s not wrong either, by the way. After going down 2-0, the Islanders completely fell apart. They had two power plays, but nothing came from them either.

His verbal barrage didn’t stop there, adding: “You could come back in those games. And sometimes, I feel we don’t believe enough in that.”

All season long, the Islanders have struggled with confidence. This issue predates Roy to the Lane Lambert era, but it’s only worsened with time. Their special teams suffer the most, as they cannot consistently win at the special teams game without confidence.

They allowed just six shots in the first period. The Penguins registered 21 shots on goal in the second period and 14 more in the third. That is unacceptable by any metric, let alone one in which the Islanders started a goaltender who hadn’t appeared in the NHL since 2021.

Roy’s frustration has to be mounting. He blasted the interior defense on the kill, saying, “It’s been an issue all year. We have to protect the net front.”

MacLean Takes Ownership:

Needing a fast start in the third period, the Islanders started rolling through their lines with no issues, up until Kyle MacLean took an ill-timed penalty, sending the dreadful kill back on the ice. The Penguins used almost the entire two minutes before Phillip Tomasino flung a puck on goal and it banked off Alexander Romanov and in.

Sitting in his stall postgame, MacLean wore a thousand-yard stare. He was generous enough to chat with me after a poor ending to the night and said of his penalty:

“That’s something I can’t do, and it cost us, so I’m not happy that I did that. It’s my responsibility not to take a penalty like that.”

More From Horvat, Roy, and MacLean:

Speaking postgame, Bo Horvat illuminated the exasperation at the inability of the team to string together wins all year long. He said, “It’s all about consistency in this league, and that’s why the best teams are at the top. Right now, this win one, lose one thing is not going to do us any favors here.”

The Islanders have won back-to-back games just twice this season and have yet to win three in a row.

Roy’s frustration at the lack of heart continued in his full breakdown, saying, “I mean, when they scored that (second) goal, I thought that we were affected by it. All we had to do was just focus on scoring the next one and (make a) comeback. We lost the first period. We lost the second. We had to find a way to win that third period and give ourselves a chance to win the game in that third period.”

They did win the third period, 2-1. It wasn’t enough, and Roy admitted as much:

“I didn’t think we’d compete like we were capable of yesterday.”

MacLean pointed to Pittsburgh getting to their game faster while the Islanders struggled to match their intensity.

Takeaways:

Clearly, Patrick Roy isn’t happy. His quotes tonight are as harsh as any he’s given all year, and that’s just another indictment of this season. Calling his team out for being mentally weak after a goal went in the net is as point-blank as a coach can be.

It almost feels like he wants it more than his players at times, and that just cannot ever be the case. An old saying goes, “You can bring the horses to water, but you can’t make them drink.” Roy might just be learning that lesson the hard way this year.

Once again, there’s still a way out. But it would require consistent efforts night in and night out, something this Islanders’ team has not proven capable of so far.