Mathieu Darche to Become GM of the Islanders

[Osakahaus]

No matter who it was going to be. It will be an ungrateful job as that team has many long term contracts and a big turnover needed to get up to really competing.

Will probably be fired to early because of unrealistic expectations / pressure from fans.
Islanders need a big re-tool and with all those no trade / modified no trade / no movement clause contracts, that is not going to be easy.

They also can be aggressive and competitive because the metro is a terrible division, and all they need is a proper revamp of their bottom 6 and a better backup. You can take the islanders a different way even with the 1st overall

Also they can take Misa and dramatically improve their offense right away

 

[Stive Morgan]

I don't think this is entirely accurate when you look at his overall body of work.

I think bergevin's biggest weakness was player retention based. For whatever reasons, he seemed to take contract negotiations personally, and it lead to a couple of the most disastrous off seasons that I have witnesses in montreal's history (2017 and 2021).

I think the case of bringing radulov in from khl and then letting him get away in the offseason epitomizes the strengths and issues that bergevin had all at once.

I have no idea why he would let Radulov walk and then sign Gallagher to a $6.5M/6 year contract.

That's less than what Radulov got with Dallas. But instead Bozo Bergevin signs an inferior player for more money/term because Price and the Tatar-Danault-Gallagher line saved his ass for a few months lmao

 

[SirKillalot]

They also can be aggressive and competitive because the metro is a terrible division, and all they need is a proper revamp of their bottom 6 and a better backup. You can take the islanders a different way even with the 1st overall

Well their top six isn't good enough to win anything, they need some changes both top six and bottom and defence.

Also they can take Misa and dramatically improve their offense right away

Don't think he will drastically improve their roster right away.

 

[miscs75]

Well their top six isn't good enough to win anything, they need some changes both top six and bottom and defence.

Don't think he will drastically improve their roster right away.

Bottom 6 is easy to fix once they have a system in place. Ideally starting next season with Pageau and Cizikas as your 3C &4C then building from there. Gatcomb and Tsyplakov are both solid and can provide decent depth. Just finding 2 other pieces to round it out would fix a lot of issues with the bottom 6. Ultimately another 2 wings who are high energy and can play with a bit of nastiness are ideal pieces. I’m thinking they start with this:

???? (Possibly Lee)-Ritchie-Pageau
Tsyplakov-Cizikas-Gatcomb

The top 6 is the hard one to fix since realistically they have 3, maybe 4 top 6 forwards coming back. Horvat, Barzal, Holmstrom and possibly Lee for that. They need to find 3-4 pieces for the forwards once they figure out what to do and what direction to go in.

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

Kind of disappointed it wasn't Patrick Roy being coach and GM.

 

[DEANYOUNGBLOOD17]

Kind of disappointed it wasn't Patrick Roy being coach and GM.

What’s the over / under on the date Roy and Darche getting into a very huge public dust- up sissy fit that ends with Roy taking his toys out of the sand- box and going home.

Somebody should start one of those on - line HFB polls ….. that can rate the % of the HFB posters guesses on when it happens.

You not I said when and not if it’s going to happen….

 

[Islanders4Cups]

Bottom 6 is easy to fix once they have a system in place. Ideally starting next season with Pageau and Cizikas as your 3C &4C then building from there. Gatcomb and Tsyplakov are both solid and can provide decent depth. Just finding 2 other pieces to round it out would fix a lot of issues with the bottom 6. Ultimately another 2 wings who are high energy and can play with a bit of nastiness are ideal pieces. I’m thinking they start with this:

???? (Possibly Lee)-Ritchie-Pageau
Tsyplakov-Cizikas-Gatcomb

The top 6 is the hard one to fix since realistically they have 3, maybe 4 top 6 forwards coming back. Horvat, Barzal, Holmstrom and possibly Lee for that. They need to find 3-4 pieces for the forwards once they figure out what to do and what direction to go in.

This team is arguably a playoff team as is had Barzal been around for the second half. They certainly need some new blood to improve the powerplay and penalty kill which is the reason they didn't make the playoffs IMO. They were better than half the league 5 on 5.

If Darche can figure out the contract debacle he has (he is supposedly good at that) and find a way to pick up some positive pieces for special teams, next season may not look so bad while their prospects grow.

 

[miscs75]

This team is arguably a playoff team as is had Barzal been around for the second half. They certainly need some new blood to improve the powerplay and penalty kill which is the reason they didn't make the playoffs IMO. They were better than half the league 5 on 5.

If Darche can figure out the contract debacle he has (he is supposedly good at that) and find a way to pick up some positive pieces for special teams, next season may not look so bad while their prospects grow.

With an average special teams this past season, they would have had the final spot in the East most likely. They easily coughed away 9 points from how absymal they were on the PK, which was essentially one of the teams strongest spots for years until Lane flipped it upside down and it just continued under Roy. Fix the PK structure and everything else will fall into place defensively.
The biggest thing now is that we’ll see a coach and GM finally on the same page with systems and personnel instead of Lou forcing his square peg into round hole type of idea he was trying to push on Roy. No more former GM hires for assistants or systems that just conflict with eachother like what MacLean/Albelin/Houda were basically told to do while going against what Roy wanted. Roy brings one guy in who’s essentially an unknown and he improved the faceoffs to the point just about one could beat them.
As for the contracts, he’ll have to get creative. You have to think this is at minimum a 2 year project to fix everything and move forward. That gives them enough extra time to let Eiserman, Nelson, this years 1st, possibly next years 1st(s), George and whoever else in the system get stronger and work on their games under development and possibly become impact players shortly after getting their feet wet in the NHL. Ritchie as well but he’s pencilled in for a slot this upcoming season so I didn’t list him.
I also can’t see Dobson being a mess going forward that he was this past year. I feel like the contract expiration and added pressure on himself to best the 23-24 year got to him and caused him to overthink everything. Ideally the new agent takes some stress away from him and he can breathe a bit. Look at WC highlights from goals he was involved with, almost all of them had him up on the rush which is something this team desperately wanted this year yet almost never saw until just about mid-late March. If that Dobson shows up with average defensive play, he’s going to be an absolute force on the back end.

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

What’s the over / under on the date Roy and Darche getting into a very huge public dust- up sissy fit that ends with Roy taking his toys out of the sand- box and going home.

Somebody should start one of those on - line HFB polls ….. that can rate the % of the HFB posters guesses on when it happens.

You not I said when and not if it’s going to happen….

I could see that happening.

But only the Isles would be a team with odd management styles. Like... Mike Milbury, Garth Snow, Patrick Roy being on that list would make so much sense. It's the only franchise he'd likely get both with.

 

[Pizza!Pizza!]

Can't even spell "Matthew" correctly, things not looking great for the Isle.

 

[periferal]

Can't even spell "Matthew" correctly, things not looking great for the Isle.

...Isles.

 

[Iggys Dome]

 

[Konk]

...Isles.

 

[MikeyMike01]

Can't even spell "Matthew" correctly, things not looking great for the Isle.

is this a Barzal joke

 

[blinkman360]

Speaking of, good to see you in this thread my man! This had to have been disappointing after the Shanahan thread

"Living Rent Free" he says, meanwhile in every Isles post I come across I see a crying laughing react from The Crypto Bro. I f***ed off from the boards for like 2 years and the guy still has the same gimmick after all this time. It's impressive.

 

[JianYang]

What’s the over / under on the date Roy and Darche getting into a very huge public dust- up sissy fit that ends with Roy taking his toys out of the sand- box and going home.

Somebody should start one of those on - line HFB polls ….. that can rate the % of the HFB posters guesses on when it happens.

You not I said when and not if it’s going to happen….

Darche struck me as a pretty methodical guy both on and off the ice. I don't think it would be his style to publicize.

A coach is always in a precarious spot when the guy that hired him is no longer there, and these two guys are pretty opposite personalities too.

I don't think this is going to be a lasting relationship although most coaches only seem to last a couple years in one place regardless these days.

 

[BLONG7]

I have no idea why he would let Radulov walk and then sign Gallagher to a $6.5M/6 year contract.

That's less than what Radulov got with Dallas. But instead Bozo Bergevin signs an inferior player for more money/term because Price and the Tatar-Danault-Gallagher line saved his ass for a few months lmao

Isles dodged a bullet with Bergevin............Darche would be a much smarter GM.

Bergevin was a flawed GM from the get go.............CP31 covered over so many issues during the Bergevin years..........when he could, and wasn't injured.

 

[Kranix]

To me, Darche is synonymous with Tampa's horrid RBK edge uniforms

 

[Koivu11]

 

[GordonGraham]

Roy is staying, 2 assistants and all the AHL coaches fired/let go

 

[SI90]

Darche just absolutely aced his press conference. I could listen to him talk hockey all day. Very excited for him.