NHL May Punish Patrick Roy for League Rule Violation Following Panthers Blowout

The Islanders suffered a stunning defeat to the Florida Panthers last night. Just over halfway through the first period, the team jumped out to a 3-0 lead. They would, however, blow the lead and lose 6-3.

The inability of Islanders coach Patrick Roy to get the team to protect leads has been a problem for New York ever since Lane Lambert took over as bench coach following the dismissal of Barry Trotz in May 2022. Florida scored six goals in a row to win it after New York scored three goals in a row in the first period.

Strangely, before the game, Roy and none of the players made themselves available to the media. In actuality, this is against NHL policy, and the team may face heavy consequences.

As head coach Sheldon Keefe of the New Jersey Devils has demonstrated, coaches are not required to respond in a certain way to a specific question. They can choose not to answer the question, avoid it, or even refuse to talk about it, but they cannot simply fail to show up. The strangest aspect of this may be that he did, as usual, address the media following the game. He would probably be more likely to skip the press conference after the game, wouldn't he? It was a difficult loss, after all, and he was probably not thrilled to have to talk about it. He even seemed to imply that he was compelled to play Pierre Engvall even though he did not want him in the starting lineup.

Pretty certain many people would do everything they can to stay out of the media after blowing a three-goal lead. But it's a little more odd to avoid the media before the game. Roy might have been playing games, but it was only a regular-season game against the Florida Panthers. There is no rivalry between the teams. Why would he pull something like this?