Breaking Down Patrick Roy’s Early Islanders Lineup Plan For Training Camp
At the Islanders' charity golf outing on Monday, Roy revealed his initial lineup plans entering training camp.
WESTBURY, NY — On Monday, New York Islanders head coach Patrick Roy offered a glimpse into his lineup plans heading into training camp.
“The plan is to try to use Barzal with Lee and Palmieri, and we'll go from there,” Roy said. “Maybe in a week from now, you’re going to ask me the same question, and I might have a totally different answer. As of today, that’s the plan. Then we’ll go from there.”
I followed up by asking who would get the first look alongside Jonathan Drouin and Bo Horvat on the top line.
“Shabanov. We want to see Shabanov, and I was thinking of having Duclair play with Pageau and Holmstrom to start,” Roy said. “But it’s just the start. Things will change. Actually, I almost regret telling you those lines because I feel like you might look bad the next day you write this, because things might change overnight. You never know.”
I’ll live.
The one forward line we didn’t get an answer on was the fourth line, which is likely to feature Emil Heineman alongside Casey Cizikas and Maxim Tsyplakov.
To make things easier, here’s how the lines look:
You may be scratching your head at some of these decisions. The one thing to remember is that the Islanders have depth. And when we say depth, we don’t just mean bodies. There’s talent up and down the lineup, a good problem to have.
Having competition in camp is important because it pushes everyone to rise to the occasion.
Let’s go line by line, shall we?