At the first significant mile marker of the NHL season, things are going as well as they could be for Mathieu Darche.
Despite the Islanders’ 3-1 loss to the Bruins on Wednesday night at UBS Arena, they head into Thanksgiving at 13-9-2, looking like a serious playoff contender, and the vibe shift within the organization under Darche’s tutelage has been palpable.
Much of that is down to the general manager nailing what could end up being the most consequential move of his tenure and drafting Matthew Schaefer first overall, but it doesn’t hurt that a number of other offseason moves — pushing for Emil Heineman’s inclusion in the Noah Dobson trade, retaining coach Patrick Roy and signing Jonathan Drouin among them — have, at least so far, worked out.
“What I’ve liked is the way we’ve progressed from the start,” Darche said before Wednesday’s loss. “Our defensive game has really improved the last few weeks. You saw it on the trip [last week]. At the beginning of the year, we changed the system, so there was some adjustment from a lot of players. We turned pucks over a lot at the start [and] we’ve been a lot better.
“… We’re trending in the right direction, which is nice to see, and I like the vibe around our team. The players, Patrick talked about joy — you can see there’s joy in the way we’re playing. We believe every game we have a chance to win.”
Islanders GM Mathieu Darche speaks at a press conference. Robert Sabo for NY Post
The synergy between Darche and Roy, two Quebecois who did not know each other before Darche drove up to Montreal over the offseason to meet with his incumbent coach, has been a huge part of the Islanders’ success.
Roy, who chafed under Lou Lamoriello, finally got to install the aggressive system he’s always envisioned and hire his own assistant coaching staff. But Darche has had plenty of influence over the day-to-day operations, too — including benching Mathew Barzal after he missed the bus to the rink in Carolina last month, an important moment for the general manager to define his culture.
Islanders head coach Patrick Roy reacts on the bench. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST
“We communicate constantly. We’re on the same page in how we want to play, communicating with players,” Darche said of his relationship with Roy. “We talk every single day. Even on a day off, we’ll get on the phone and chat. So it’s great, and I didn’t know much about Patrick before working with him, but you can see his passion.
“One piece of advice I got from my old boss [Lightning GM Julien BriseBois] is when you get this job, you need to be on the same page as the coach. If you’re not on the same page as the coach, it’s very tough for it to work. Patrick and I are definitely on the same page.”
“He’s been doing a phenomenal job,” Roy added of Darche. “He knows his stuff. He knows what to do.”
On the ice from Long Island
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The traditional stat is that roughly 75 percent of teams in a playoff position at Thanksgiving make it. The Islanders were guaranteed to be above the cutline at the holiday before they played Wednesday, though how tight the Eastern Conference is overall — before Wednesday’s games there were just nine points separating the Hurricanes in first from the Maple Leafs in last — calls into question how accurate that axiom will be this season.
That, Darche said, will also affect how early any trades get done. Though a number of Western Conference teams, namely Vancouver, Nashville and Calgary, have emerged as potential sellers, no one is rushing to make deals at this point in the calendar.
“It’s so tight everywhere,” Darche said. “Other years, you get to Thanksgiving or early December, you have teams that mathematically, of course they’re still in this time of year, but you’re looking at it like, well, it’s gonna be tougher this year. For the longest time in the Eastern Conference [this season], you’d win two games and end up in second place, you’d lose two and you were in last place in the conference. I think there’s too many teams that are still in it right now. It’s fairly quiet.”