Patrick Roy may be punished by the NHL for breaking league rule after blowout loss to the Florida Panthers
New York Islanders head coach Patrick Roy could be fined by the NHL today after he refused to make himself available to the media before last night's game.
The Islanders lost last night to the Florida Panthers in spectacular fashion. The team came out strong, building a 3-0 lead just over half-way through the first period. However, they would then give up six unanswered to blow the lead for an embarrassing 6-3 loss.
Oddly, Roy did not make himself, nor any of the players available for the media prior to the game. This is actually a violation of NHL policy, and could carry a punishment for the team.
As New Jersey Devils head coach Keefe has shown us coaches are not obligated to give any particular answer when they are asked a specific question. They can avoid the question, give non-answers or even refuse to speak about it, but they can't not show up at all. Perhaps the weirdest part of this is that he did speak to the media after the game as normal. One would think that he would be more inclined to skip the post-game presser right? After all, it was a tough loss and he probably wasn't very happy that he had to discuss it. In fact, he seemed to hint that he did not want Pierre Engvall in the lineup, but is being forced to play him.
I know if my team blew a three goal lead and surrendered six goals straight I would try to avoid the media as much as possible afterwards. Avoiding the media pre-game is a but more strange though. It could be some form of gamesmanship from Roy, but it was just a regular-season match up against the Florida Panthers. The teams are not even rivals. Why would he do this?
