{"id":545302,"date":"2026-04-07T10:27:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545302\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T10:27:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:27:42","slug":"islanders-mathieu-darche-couldnt-wait-any-longer-for-pete-deboer-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545302\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders’ Mathieu Darche couldn’t wait any longer for Pete DeBoer move"},"content":{"rendered":"

The playoffs are a bonus \u2014 not the focus.<\/p>\n

In the midst of a season-worst four-game slide that has put the Islanders in danger of missing the postseason for the second straight year, first-year general manager Mathieu Darche made the stunning decision on Sunday to fire head coach Patrick Roy, replacing him with Pete DeBoer<\/a> with only four games remaining in the regular season.<\/p>\n

Though the change could provide an immediate spark, Darche\u2019s bold move was shaped by long-term logic.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew Islanders coach Pete DeBoer on the ice. New York Islanders\/Kathryn Howell<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys like Pete DeBoer don\u2019t stay on the market very long,\u201d Darche said before Monday\u2019s practice. \u201cHis pedigree, I mean he went to five of the last six conference finals. He\u2019s had success everywhere he\u2019s been. He\u2019s a very structured coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s what we need moving forward. It\u2019s like grabbing the No. 1 free agent on the market.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

DeBoer, 57, ranks 18th all time in wins in league history (662) and has the most playoff wins of any coach who has never won the Stanley Cup (97). He appeared in the Cup Final with two different teams (Devils, Sharks) and reached the conference finals on eight occasions, most recently making three straight runs with the Stars before being fired in June.<\/p>\n

After receiving permission from Dallas to negotiate with DeBoer, the Islanders general manager spoke with the coach following Saturday\u2019s loss in Carolina. Talks intensified Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

Then, Darche spoke with Roy \u2014 a coach he didn\u2019t hire \u2014 ending the Hall of Famer\u2019s three-season run on Long Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatty was the utmost professional. That\u2019s probably what made it harder,\u201d Darche said. \u201cHe\u2019s a great person. He cares a lot. He understands the business that we\u2019re in. I have nothing but total respect for Patrick.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just felt it was time, just to move the group forward, it was time to make a change. But Patrick, I only have great things to say. I didn\u2019t know him before I came here. I now consider him a friend, so it was a tough thing to do, but sometimes you have to make those decisions.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew Islanders coach Pete DeBoer
\n Howie Kussoy\/NY Post<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is by no means all on Patrick. Sometimes it\u2019s just the circumstance that you need a change and a different voice, and that was the time right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the current losing streak, the Islanders had won seven of 11 games, but Darche noted how the team had been overly reliant on goaltender Ilya Sorokin to clean up the mistakes his defense has made all season.<\/p>\n

The timing of the firing blindsided virtually everyone outside the front office<\/a>, but the switch comes during a lull in the schedule, giving DeBoer three full practice days before the Islanders (42-31-5) return Thursday against the Maple Leafs at UBS Arena.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat helps a bit, but it wasn\u2019t necessarily like, \u2018Wow we\u2019re desperate because, oh, we have four games left.\u2019 If it was really desperate about this year, I would have made the change a month ago,\u201d Darche said. \u201cBut I wasn\u2019t there a month ago with the way the team was playing. I think there\u2019s going to be tweaks. You don\u2019t do a whole system change because at the end of the day, it\u2019s not enough time. But it\u2019s tweaks, it\u2019s a different message.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I think it increases our odds this year? I do think so for those last four games. We don\u2019t control everything that\u2019s coming, but we do control the way we\u2019re playing. I felt that a jolt and maybe a little different tweak to the structure, especially after the last little bit here, those few games, it was needed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The playoffs are a bonus \u2014 not the focus. In the midst of a season-worst four-game slide that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5,122,2595,3328,159,5190,5189,4,2905,2087,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-545302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-islanders","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-islanders","10":"tag-mathieu-darche","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-islanders","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkislanders","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-patrick-roy","17":"tag-pete-deboer","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116362953071254703","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545302","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=545302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}