Islanders have Patrick Roy's tough training camp to look forward to
New York Islanders head coach Patrick Roy gives instructions from behind his bench during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. The Islanders won 5-4. Of the 16 teams entering the NHL playoffs this weekend, seven feature coaches who are in their first full year or hired as midseason replacements. Credit: AP/Gene Puskar
Bo Horvat knows what to expect come September. No doubt, so do all of his Islanders teammates.
Patrick Roy, starting his first full season as Islanders coach, is going to run a very tough training camp.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah,” Horvat said Friday at Northwell Health Ice Center in East Meadow as the Islanders conducted their exit interviews after the Hurricanes eliminated them in five games in the first round. “I think we witnessed that when we came back from the [All-Star] break. We had a pretty tough skate. It’s definitely not going to be easy. But I think that’s great.
“If you can get through that training camp, the rest of it is going to feel easy. It stinks going through it but a lot of the bad times in the season stink too and you’ve got to fight through those. I think a little adversity at camp and getting through that is going to help us.”
The Islanders were outscored 10-1 in the third periods in the playoffs and struggled to hold leads all season.
Roy, who took over for Lane Lambert on Jan. 20, put the Islanders through four days of intense practices Feb. 14-17 leading up to their Stadium Series match against the Rangers at MetLife Stadium.
Otherwise, Roy did not have many practices to implement his systematic changes, which he wound up doing mostly through morning skates.
Having Roy at the helm from Day 1 of training camp should bolster the Islanders, who finished third in the Metropolitan Division but have not won a playoff series since 2021.
“I look forward to the training camp and I think the players are looking forward, as well, to a fresh start and having a training camp because there is a lot of positives coming from this season,” Roy said. “The summer is going to be good to think about how we want to approach training camp, how we want to prepare ourselves and what we want to do in order for us to have a strong year.”
Mayfield's tough year
Defenseman Scott Mayfield, in the first season of a seven-year, $24.5 million deal, injured his ankle in the season opener and played just 41 games (five assists, 35 penalty minutes, minus-7) before being shut down for ankle surgery on Feb. 24. His walking boot only came off shortly before Friday’s breakup day.
“I’m starting to walk around, that’s about where I’m at,” said Mayfield, who turns 31 in October. “It’s a process, the rehab process and it’s going well. But it’s tough sitting there watching games, especially in the playoffs. So it was a tough year.”
However, Mayfield said the recovery from surgery will not affect his offseason training schedule and he expects to be ready for Day 1 of training camp.
“One hundred percent,” Mayfield said. “It was game one, a fracture of the ankle and it just never healed right. A couple of twists here and there and, mid-February, we decided it just needed to get healthy.
“There were some better nights and some not so good nights. I need to play a pretty specific way. And it’s hard to do that when there’s something wrong.”
Wither Wahlstrom?
The expectation is that Oliver Wahlstrom’s time with the Islanders has run its natural course and the former first-rounder did little to dispel that notion.
Wahlstrom, the 11th overall pick in 2018 who turns 24 in June, will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights coming off a one-year, $874,125 deal. Wahlstrom, who had two goals and four assists in 32 games after tearing his ACL midway through the previous season, would become an unrestricted free agent if the Islanders do not extend him a qualifying offer.
“I don’t really have anything to say on that,” Wahlstrom said when asked whether he expects to return to the Islanders. “We’ll see what happens coming up this summer.”
Wahlstrom also replied, “We’ll see,” when asked if he wants to return to the Islanders, though he added he and president/general manager Lou Lamoriello have had multiple conversations.
Wahlstrom said the injury hindered him more than he expected.
“There’s no excuses in this business,” said Wahlstrom, adding he only began skating without a knee brace within the last two months. “I never went through something like that. I was expecting to be 100%, 200% right off the bat. Being young, you don’t realize you’ve got to take baby steps coming back from injuries.”
Out the door?
Defensemen Mike Reilly, Robert Bortuzzo and Sebastian Aho are all unrestricted free agents and none said they were sure they’d have a spot next season with the Islanders.
Bortuzzo, 35, played 23 games without a point after being acquired from the Blues for a seventh-round pick, missing 31 games from Jan. 4-March 19 with a high ankle sprain. Reilly, 30, had six goals and 18 assists in 59 games after being claimed off waivers from the Panthers. Aho, 28, a fifth-round pick of the Islanders in 2017, had two goals and seven assists in 58 games in his third full NHL season. But he lost significant playing time once Bortuzzo returned from his injury.
“I wasn’t playing at the end, which always stinks,” said Aho, who did not dress in the playoffs. “I still felt like a part of the team. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.”
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.