Patrick Roy leaves players needing a nap after day one NY Islanders training camp

The legs feed the wolf!

There's been plenty of anticipation for Patrick Roy's first New York Islanders training camp, but you wonder if anything could have fully prepared the 57 attending players for what their head coach, with a Hall-of-Fame work ethic, had waiting for them when they hit the ice Thursday morning.

No one was more ready to blow the whistle and get to work than Roy, who is operating his first NHL camp since 2015 with the Colorado Avalanche and wasted no time pushing his team to the limits of exhaustion. "It was a tough morning. It's time to go have a nap," half-joked defenseman Alexander Romanov. "It was hard. I don't know how everyone is feeling, but I'm deadly tired."

"They knew they were going to work, and they did, and that was exactly what I was looking for," said Roy after the fast and furious start to camp. "We want to raise the bar, there's no doubt about it and there's no way better way to do it right on day one, set the tone for training camp."

Roy's fiery demeanor and passion were among the reasons why GM Lou Lamoriello named him head coach last January while the Isles were floundering under Lane Lambert and outside the playoff picture. From his opening practice, when he told the players that it was "playoff hockey from here on out," there was a different energy and intensity around the team, which jumpstarted them during the second half of the season and propelled them into the playoffs, finishing third in the Metropolitan Division after an 8-0-1 finish to the regular season.

"We had a great push at the end of last year, but what we look forward to is have a good start and have a great year," added Roy on Thursday. That great push to end the season was followed by pushing his team to start a training camp as hard as they've ever been.