Patrick Roy shoulders part of the blame for the NY Islanders atrocious special teams

Back in September, much focus was put on the impact Patrick Roy's first training camp would have on the New York Islanders this season. Rather than having to take over a team mid-season and implement a new system, Roy had time to develop a program to emphasize areas of improvement for the team during the season.

There were daily reports of how intense the practices were, often ending with bag skates to drive conditioning. Roy emphasized team morale and the importance of mental endurance, but apparently, one thing he didn't focus on enough was special teams.

"I feel like we should have maybe spent more time on the PK and power play in training camp because as soon as the season starts, it's a grind," said Roy via The Hockey News. "And look, in the last month, we maybe have had three practices, and we play back-to-back games."

That's hard to understand and is borderline inexcusable given how poor the Islanders special teams were last season. They finished last in PK at 71.5% and were 18th on the power-play, converting 20.3% of their opportunities with the man advantage. This season, they're on pace to be historically bad, potentially the worst special teams ever, and currently dead last in both categories.

"You always want to find the balance between pushing the guys and resting the guys," Roy continued. "There's so many thinks you want to work at, 5-on-5 and stuff like this. So, yeah, I'll take part of the blame on this because maybe I could have put more emphasis on the power play and PK during training camp."

Roy's admission is encouraging, but it's also puzzling why he thought last year's poor special teams were more of an aberration than a growing trend. The Islanders replaced defensive assistant coach Doug Houda with Tommy Albelin partly because of their troubles on the penalty kill. Roy did discuss how the team was going back to more of a "flush" system that they had previously had in place two seasons earlier. Meanwhile, the power play has remained in charge of a power play without key contributors this season but still has enough playmakers to be much better than they've been.

Three consecutive days off doesn't come by often during the season. Thursday's practice allowed them to spend time on things they didn't spend enough time on back in training camp and perhaps experiment with new ways to improve. After all, there's nowhere to go but up.