{"id":63150,"date":"2025-12-07T06:11:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T06:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/63150\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T06:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T06:11:09","slug":"mathieu-darches-tampa-bay-homecoming-an-islanders-reminder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/63150\/","title":{"rendered":"Mathieu Darche’s Tampa Bay homecoming an Islanders reminder"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA \u2014 Mathieu Darche was clear in pointing out that his return to Tampa<\/a> was not the same as a player or coach facing a former team. <\/p>\n

Darche couldn\u2019t influence Saturday\u2019s game between the Islanders and Lightning after the puck dropped, and he can walk around town without being recognized.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, there was an element Saturday of the prodigal son returning. <\/p>\n

\"GeneralIslanders general manager Mathieu Darche NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Darche was an assistant general manager to Julien BriseBois for six seasons, helping the Lightning as they won the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021, before getting a chance to sit in the big chair this summer with the Islanders<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI had six great years here,\u201d Darche said. \u201cThe staff, the coaches, the management \u2014 it\u2019s a Saturday morning, so not many people are here, but I got to see them in New York last week. It\u2019s fun.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe left New York, it was 22 degrees. We get here, it was 80, so you remember those. It\u2019s fun to be here. But at the end of the day, it\u2019s not about me being back. It\u2019s the players playing the games.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Islanders entered Saturday following wins over Tampa Bay and Colorado, which allowed them to end a 3-3-1 homestand on a positive note. <\/p>\n

Darche referred to their schedule over the next week, which includes this trip to Florida and home games against Vegas, Anaheim and the Lightning again, as \u201ca gauntlet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beating the Lightning 2-1 last Tuesday on Long Island, though, gave Darche bragging rights over BriseBois, though they were on the line again Saturday.\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

\u201cI think it means something, for sure,\u201d Darche\u2019s brother, J.P., who\u2019s with the Islanders for the team\u2019s dads and mentors trip this weekend, said. \u201cHe\u2019s got so much appreciation for the people here, Julien BriseBois and all these [guys]. And I\u2019ve met these guys on the trips we do, like this, for the last few years. And they\u2019re great people, great to him. He\u2019s super appreciative, he had a lot of success. I\u2019m pretty sure he wants to bring back the \u2018W.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

J.P. Darche, a former long snapper for the Seahawks and Chiefs, now works for Kansas City as one of their team doctors. Like his brother, he went to school at McGill, and the two were on the football team together for a year before Mathieu \u2014 who grew up a two-sport athlete \u2014 finally had to pick hockey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To state the obvious, that was the right decision. Darche grinded his way through a playing career of over a decade and, after a short stint in the corporate world, has found more success as an executive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHockey was his dream all the time and he was doing media work [with French-language channel RDS] in Montreal, doing all that stuff. That kept him in hockey for a while,\u201d J.P. Darche said. \u201cI think the opportunity [with Tampa Bay] just came out of nowhere, kind of. I remember when he had to make the decision, \u2018I\u2019m in a good gig here, I\u2019m in my hometown, everything\u2019s going great. Do I uproot my family and come down to Tampa?\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo he kind of bet on himself and said let\u2019s do it, and it worked out great. So I was happy for him. I remember we talked about it. I\u2019m like, \u2018This is your dream. You gotta take it.\u2019 It\u2019s worked out just wonderful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"MathieuLightning assistant general manager Mathieu Darche celebrates with the Stanley Cup following their victory over the Canadiens in Game Five of the 2021 Final at the Amalie Arena on July 7, 2021 in Tampa. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Each brother has championship rings; J.P. won three with the Chiefs. They\u2019re hoping the family\u2019s next one will be with the Islanders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna get a couple Cups,\u201d J.P. said. \u201cBack in the early \u201980s, my earliest memory of hockey is the Islanders winning Stanley Cups. I know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jean-Gabriel Pageau (upper body) was a full participant in Saturday\u2019s morning skate. <\/p>\n

Darche said there\u2019s a chance Pageau could play Sunday against the Panthers and that his status now is day to day.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Drouin (lower back) was the only Islander not to come on the trip to Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe stayed back home just to get some treatment,\u201d Darche said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t expect him to be out too long. Hopefully, it\u2019s just day to day. That\u2019s what we think it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adam Boqvist drew back into the lineup for the first time since Nov. 26, with Travis Mitchell coming out.<\/p>\n

New Pacific Airlines, which previously flew the Islanders, ceased operations suddenly during the Islanders\u2019 last homestand, causing the team to switch to a plane supplied by Private Jet Solutions this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA \u2014 Mathieu Darche was clear in pointing out that his return to Tampa was not the same…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29605,9,11,6821,10,539,319,22230],"class_list":{"0":"post-63150","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-sports","15":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63150","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=63150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}