the comments that led the winger to take a leave of absence<\/a> after Roy laid into his effort following an April 1 loss to the Lightning.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cI would like to apologize to him, but in person,\u201d Roy said Thursday when speaking to media for the first time since the season ended. \u201cNot on the telephone and saying, \u2018Oh, I\u2019d like to apologize to you.\u2019 That\u2019s not how I want to do those things.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to do it in person and for him to know. He played for me in junior. He knows how much I like him, how much respect I have for him. Sometimes you say things after games and then you regret it, and that\u2019s one of them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The expectation is for Duclair to be at training camp in September and ready to rebound from a disastrous first season with the Islanders. <\/p>\n
Patrick Roy wants to apologize to Anthony Duclair. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
Duclair never seemed to recover from a groin injury suffered just five games into the year, returning in late December but failing to find his game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His struggles culminated in Roy calling his performance \u201cgod-awful\u201d and questioning whether Duclair was putting in a full effort after the aforementioned loss to Tampa Bay. <\/p>\n
The next day, the Islanders announced Duclair would take a leave of absence that ended up lasting for the rest of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Duclair signed last summer, the expectation was he would form of the top line with Bo Horvat and Mat Barzal. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a lot less clear what his role will be going into this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I love about this, it\u2019s gonna be a very interesting training camp,\u201d Roy said. \u201cThere\u2019s gonna be a lot of competition out there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anthony Duclair struggled through a disastrous first season with the Islanders. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
Roy offered a few nuggets of information on how he plans to start things during camp. <\/p>\n
Barzal, he said, will play center. New signing Jonathan Drouin will start on a line with Bo Horvat, while he and Max Shabanov can play the flanks on the power play.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of course, that all can and will change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOn the ice from Long Island\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Islanders by Ethan Sears, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I like about [Shabanov], he\u2019s a small forward, but he plays big,\u201d Roy said of the Russian wing who signed with the Islanders on Wednesday. \u201cHe goes in traffic, he goes in those areas. What I also like is the way he played in his defensive zone coverage. Sometimes you bring a guy in and you feel like the adjustment\u2019s gonna be very difficult. But I don\u2019t think it will be for him because he\u2019s capable of playing defensively.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
No. 1 pick Matthew Schaefer is another piece of the puzzle Roy will have to figure out, with Schaefer gunning to make the team out of camp.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re gonna give him all the opportunity and support,\u201d Roy said. \u201cBut the thing I love about him is how humble and successful he is. I do believe he\u2019s gonna be very successful. He\u2019s very intelligent, very mature.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anthony Duclair finished last season on a leave of absence. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
Roy sported a beard at development camp this week, a reminder of the new reality around the Islanders. <\/p>\n
After he and Lou Lamoriello clashed at times last season over play style, things are off to a smooth start between Roy and new general manager Mathieu Darche.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Darche gave Roy a significant say in hiring assistant coaches Ray Bennett and Bob Boughner \u2014 the plan is for Bennett to run the power play, Boughner to run the penalty kill, and holdover Benoit Desrosiers to run faceoffs and help Roy with the five-on-five \u2014 and the head coach had only good things to say about how the relationship has been so far.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just great,\u201d Roy said. \u201cFrom the first day I met him to today, it\u2019s been just great. We\u2019ve been talking hockey a lot. Talk about the team, talk about different stuff. It\u2019s been pleasant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been more than three months since Patrick Roy spoke with Anthony Duclair.\u00a0 The Islanders coach is waiting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5976,5,122,3328,159,5190,5189,4,2905,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-109672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-islanders","8":"tag-anthony-duclair","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-islanders","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-islanders","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkislanders","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-patrick-roy","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114792266882724889","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}