Patrick Roy: Islanders have to get back to what they did well in Game 1

The prevailing sentiment for Patrick Roy is that his team should have gone home tied at one in its first-round series with Carolina.Not because the Islanders held a three-goal lead in Game 2, but because they were the better team in Game 1.“A lot of you see last game as a heartbreaking loss,” Roy said Wednesday.

“But for me the heartbreaking loss was Game 1, because that’s the game we outplayed them.That’s the game we played better than what they did.

Game 2, they deserved it, they played better than us.”Naturally, then, Roy was looking for ways to return to the blueprint from the series opener before the Islanders tried to avoid a 3-0 deficit at home on Thursday.A lengthy practice on Wednesday featured a heavy focus on breakouts and lots of instruction from the head coach.“I think the guys know, we could be better on breakouts, we could be better on our regroup, we could be better offensively,” Roy said.“Obviously, we gotta go back to what we did really well in Game 1.”The Islanders are not so much looking to dominate possession, though that would of course be nice, as they are looking to stop Carolina from reaching the same level of constant possession they had on Monday night.“Limiting their time and space in our end and breaking pucks out well,” Bo Horvat said.

“That’s what it came down to.We weren’t allowing them to wheel around and make plays [in Game 1], we were cutting plays off when they were trying to rim [the puck] back.

We were breaking pucks out clean and if it wasn’t pretty, we were flipping it out in the neutral zone and creating foot races.We gotta get back for that [Thursday].” Sign up for Inside the Islanders by Ethan Sears, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.

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