EAST MEADOW, NY -- After a week off due to the 2024 NHL All-Star break, the New York Islanders were back on the practice ice ahead of their Monday night showdown against the Maple Leafs in Toronto.
While head coach Patrick Roy took the break to get acclimated to Long Island and find a place to stay after spending his first week in a hotel, he also rewatched all four of their games from the week prior, where they went 1-2-1.
"I used, especially the last two to three days, just to look at our games, and then continue to look at what kind of change we could make and what we'd like to do," Roy said. "I was very pleased to see that by limiting the other team in our defensive zone in the last four games, we're number one in the NHL; we were the best team in that short period of time, four games.
"So, to me, this is very positive. With the cycling. I think we're in the top two in the league at this moment in those four games."
Roy is referring to time spent in the defensive and offensive zone.
While it was a positive to see the growth from game to game, Roy wanted to clean up one area, focusing Sunday's practice on tracking.
"I know it's just four games, and it's not a lot, but I mean, at least it's a positive start. But at the same time, it also allows me to see where it needs to be improved. And that's why we touched on our tracking today," Roy said. "We had a good meeting about how we want to track. We tried to simplify the tracking, helping our guys to come back in the zone and really make it convenient for our defense or easy for our defense to gap up and be better. So I think that will limit the scoring chance against that we're going to give because we've been around 20th in the NHL for scoring chance against.
"And a lot of those chances came from either bad line changes or tracking. I think today we put our heads on the the tracking. Now we're going to have to make sure we are much better on our line changes. We made a lot of line changes that were not as good. And I think it's up to each of us to be aware of that and recognize that and do it as a team."
So, the question is, what did Roy exactly mean by tracking?
"Tracking is back in the zone, how we want to work," Roy said. "Like a three on four or a two on three, or putting backside pressure on the guy and how we want to be back."
It's all related to Roy's defensive zone structure and what he is trying to implement. He wants them to be more aggressive in their own zone
The Islanders have to keep learning under Roy but start collecting points, currently sitting six points back of a wild-card spot and five back of the Philadelphia Flyers, who hold down the third spot in the Metropolitan Division.