Mathieu Darche credits BriseBois, but brings his own style to NY Islanders GM role

When Mathieu Darche was hired as general manager of the New York Islanders on May 23, he inherited a firestorm of tasks - from the NHL Combine to the draft, free agency, and arbitration cases — all within weeks. Yet despite the chaos, Darche insists he never felt overwhelmed.

The reason, he says, comes back to his six years spent working alongside Julien BriseBois in Tampa Bay. “Learning from Julien all those years, I felt prepared,” Darche told Pierre LeBrun in The Athletic. “Was it a lot? Yes. But I enjoyed the grind of it. That’s what you want to do.”

BriseBois gave Darche a front-row seat to every aspect of running a modern NHL franchise — contracts, trades, analytics, and even the subtle art of communication. Perhaps the biggest lesson Darche absorbed was to remove emotion from decision-making, a trait that came in handy during the blockbuster trade of Noah Dobson to Montreal. “That’s something I learned from Julien: take the emotion out of the decision,” Darche explained.

But while BriseBois’ influence looms large, Darche is quick to note he is not a clone. “Someone asked me if the Islanders were hiring Julien BriseBois 2.0,” he said. “No. There’s a lot of things I’ve learned from Julien, but me and him have different personalities. I can’t try to be Julien. That would be phony. I have to be me.”

For Darche, that means a collaborative, open style, where communication with players and staff is a central focus. He prefers to say people work with him, not for him. It’s a philosophy that underscores his first months as Islanders GM: built on lessons from BriseBois, but stamped with his own identity.