Islanders' Patrick Roy not worried about power play as long as it gets quality 'looks'

The results, Patrick Roy said, are important.

But, in the same breath, the Islanders coach stressed that he values the process. And that is why he feels comfortable with the state of his team’s power play.

Because, he argued, since they are getting chances it is only a matter of time before pucks begin finding their way behind opposing goaltenders.

“If you do have a lot of opportunities and we move that puck well, I do believe that eventually the numbers will be on your side,” Roy said following a 45-minute practice Wednesday morning before the team flew to Montreal. Following the two-and-a-half-week Olympic break, the Islanders will resume their season Thursday night at the Bell Centre against the Canadiens.

Through the first 58 games of the 2025-26 season, the Islanders rank 30th in the NHL, having scored 27 power play goals in 172 opportunities this season (15.7 percent).

To put those numbers in more context, of the 165 goals the Islanders have scored this season, 107 have come at five-on-five. Three have occurred skating four-aside. And another five were scored three-on-three. Essentially, 115 of their 165 goals have been scored at even strength.

“We’re always looking to improve,” said rookie defenseman Matthew Schaefer, who quarterbacks the top power play unit. “There’s little things that we can clean up, for sure.”

Because for a team that enters the final quarter of the season in third place in the Metropolitan Division with 69 points and a 32-21-5 record, the Islanders are going to need their power play units to contribute in a meaningful way in order to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Nevertheless, Roy pointed at the quality of the looks his team has generated on the man advantage when asked directly by Newsday how he assesses the performance of the power play units.

“I think the most important part to me is the looks. If you don’t have looks you better score because you don’t have many opportunities,” Roy said. “We like to focus on the process instead of always focusing on results. The results matter, don’t get me wrong. That’s what we want. But the standard of our team is to play well every time we’re on the ice, if it’s power play, PK, five-on-five. But the power play, its job is to produce energy and try to create momentum for us and generate some offense. Yes, I’d like to score on every power play but it’s not something that happens all the time.”

Even so, the Islanders did spend wide swaths of Tuesday and Wednesday’s practices working on the power play, albeit without Bo Horvat who is normally in the bumper position on the first unit. Anthony Duclair filled in for Horvat, who hasn’t practiced after playing for Team Canada in the Milan Olympics. It is expected that he will participate in the morning skate at Bell Centre and be in the lineup for the contest.

The presence of Horvat, who leads the team with 24 goals overall and whose six man-up goals are tied with Matthew Schaefer for most on the Islanders, provides a quick strike element to the power play units. Which is vital at the best of times, but whose importance has grown significantly due to the loss of Kyle Palmieri to a torn left ACL in November.

“We’ve had a lot of injuries,” Tony DeAngelo said. Along with Palmieri, Horvat missed 14 games with two separate lower-body injuries in the pre-Olympics portion of the regular season schedule. “We’ve had some changes. It’s not like a Tampa Bay where it’s [the same guys for] years. A little bit of interchange.”

Which can be viewed through different prisms. Having roster versatility can be a positive. Being able to move players up and down the lineup due to game circumstances and performance is a boon for coaches. But that versatility can be a negative if cohesion cannot be developed because of constant change.

“Our unit — Tony and I—we’ve [had] a new unit almost every other night. So you got to get that continuity and you got to get your reps in,” said Anders Lee, who is the net front presence on the second power play unit. “[You can] get comfortable in practice but there’s nothing like a game. There’s nothing like that feeling. And every team kills slightly differently. In practice, we’re going against our killers that have their way of doing it and we go play a game later and [the opponent is] killing a completely different way. So you need the game.”