Montreal This hockey-crazy city is in frenzy as great Montreal Canadiens goalkeeper Patrick Roy makes his second homecoming as an NHL coach on Thursday (7 p.m. ET, RDS, TSN2, MSGSN) when he brings his New York Islanders to Bell Centre.
“It will be fantastic. Wonderful, remarked storied defenceman Larry Robinson, the six-time Stanley Cup champion of the Canadiens who sat next to Roy in the Montreal Forum locker room during the rookie goalie’s 1985–86 Cup-winning campaign.
In Montreal, they genuinely adore Patrick. He has always been a really friendly guy and brought them two Stanley Cups. Well done, mate.
In addition to leading the Canadiens to victories in 1986 and 1993, Roy also helped the Colorado Avalanche to two more championships in 1996 and 2001.
After three seasons as the Avalanche’s head coach from 2013 to 2016, during which he won the Jack Adams Award as the league’s best coach for the first time, he abruptly departed the organization in August 2016 due to philosophical disagreements with management.
Following the 1993 Stanley Cup victory by the Montreal Canadiens, Patrick Roy skates with the trophy.
After purchasing a share in the team in 1996–97, Roy returned to coach the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major (formerly known as the Quebec Maritimes) Junior Hockey League for a second term. He received the Memorial Cup as coach in 2006 and twice the previous year.
In recent years, when NHL coaches have been fired, his name has frequently come up, but hiring managers have never seemed to find the proper fit for him.
That is, until Lou Lamoriello, the general manager and president of hockey operations for the Islanders, shocked the hockey community on Saturday by naming Roy as the new head coach.
The next night, he defeated the Dallas Stars 3-2 at home in overtime to win his debut game. The French-language network TVAS selected Roy their first star, despite the fact the Islanders media gave the three stars to New York forward Bo Horvat, goalkeeper Ilya Sorokin, and defenseman Noah Dobson.
