The Islanders have officially added Benoit Desrosiers as an assistant coach, GM Lou Lamoriello announced Friday.
Desrosiers, 35, fills out the Islanders’ new-look coaching staff led by head coach Patrick Roy. Doug Houda and John MacLean remain in their current assistant roles, which they’ve each held since last season.
Roy and Desrosiers had worked together from 2018 to 2023 with the QMJHL’s Québec Remparts. With Roy as GM and head coach and Desrosiers as an assistant, the Remparts were crowned QMJHL champions and won the Memorial Cup last season.
Both departed the Remparts last summer to pursue higher-ranking opportunities. Roy eventually found his footing as an NHL head coach once again with the Islanders, while Desrosiers accepted a head coaching role with the QMJHL’s Gatineau Olympiques. He departs Gatineau after compiling a 16-27-6 record with a -68 goal differential through 49 games.
Stephane Leroux of RDS first reported Desrosiers was departing Gatineau to join Roy’s staff on Jan. 22. The Islanders issued a statement later that day that Desrosiers was not a member of the organization yet, although there were plans for him to interview with Lamoriello “in the future.”
Desrosiers fills a vacancy on the coaching staff not filled since the team fired Barry Trotz and two assistants after the 2021-22 season. Then-associate coach Lane Lambert was promoted to the head coaching role in Trotz’s place, but the team only hired two assistants, Houda and MacLean, to fill out the bench.
As a player, Desrosiers never reached the major junior level, but he did begin his coaching career as one of the youngest assistants in the QMJHL. His first season behind the bench was with the Chicoutimi Saguenéens in 2012-13, when he was 23 years old at the beginning of the season. He moved on to the Sherbrooke Phoenix for the 2013-14 campaign, where he remained before heading to Québec in 2017, one year before Roy took over the bench.
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