{"id":53772,"date":"2025-11-27T05:05:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T05:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/53772\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T05:05:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T05:05:18","slug":"mathieu-darche-has-made-all-right-moves-and-revived-islanders-vibes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/53772\/","title":{"rendered":"Mathieu Darche has made all right moves and revived Islanders’ vibes"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the first significant mile marker of the NHL season, things are going as well as they could be for Mathieu Darche.<\/p>\n

Despite the Islanders\u2019 3-1 loss to the Bruins<\/a> 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\u2019s tutelage has been palpable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, but it doesn\u2019t hurt that a number of other offseason moves \u2014 pushing for Emil Heineman\u2019s inclusion in the Noah Dobson trade, retaining coach Patrick Roy and signing Jonathan Drouin among them \u2014 have, at least so far, worked out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve liked is the way we\u2019ve progressed from the start,\u201d Darche said before Wednesday\u2019s loss. \u201cOur 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\u2019ve been a lot better.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 We\u2019re trending in the right direction, which is nice to see, and I like the vibe around our team. The players, Patrick talked about joy \u2014 you can see there\u2019s joy in the way we\u2019re playing. We believe every game we have a chance to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NewIslanders GM Mathieu Darche speaks at a press conference. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n

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\u2019 success.<\/p>\n

Roy, who chafed under Lou Lamoriello, finally got to install the aggressive system he\u2019s always envisioned and hire his own assistant coaching staff. But Darche has had plenty of influence over the day-to-day operations, too \u2014 including benching Mathew Barzal<\/a> after he missed the bus to the rink in Carolina last month, an important moment for the general manager to define his culture.<\/p>\n

\"NewIslanders head coach Patrick Roy reacts on the bench. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n

\u201cWe communicate constantly. We\u2019re on the same page in how we want to play, communicating with players,\u201d Darche said of his relationship with Roy. \u201cWe talk every single day. Even on a day off, we\u2019ll get on the phone and chat. So it\u2019s great, and I didn\u2019t know much about Patrick before working with him, but you can see his passion.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne 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\u2019re not on the same page as the coach, it\u2019s very tough for it to work. Patrick and I are definitely on the same page.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been doing a phenomenal job,\u201d Roy added of Darche. \u201cHe knows his stuff. He knows what to do.\u201d<\/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

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 \u2014 before Wednesday\u2019s games there were just nine points separating the Hurricanes in first from the Maple Leafs in last \u2014 calls into question how accurate that axiom will be this season.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so tight everywhere,\u201d Darche said. \u201cOther years, you get to Thanksgiving or early December, you have teams that mathematically, of course they\u2019re still in this time of year, but you\u2019re looking at it like, well, it\u2019s gonna be tougher this year. For the longest time in the Eastern Conference [this season], you\u2019d win two games and end up in second place, you\u2019d lose two and you were in last place in the conference. I think there\u2019s too many teams that are still in it right now. It\u2019s fairly quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the first significant mile marker of the NHL season, things are going as well as they could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29605,9,11,6821,10,539,15316,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-53772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-mathieu-darche","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-islanders","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-patrick-roy","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}