Why did the Islanders make a coaching change?

The news coming out of Long Island on Easter Sunday was both surprising and head-scratching.

With just four games remaining in the team’s regular season, the New York Islanders decided it was time for a change behind the bench, firing head coach Patrick Roy. In response, the team hired veteran coach Pete DeBoer.

The move comes as the team has stumbled out of the top three in the Metropolitan Division. Sure, the team had relatively limited expectations, but going from playoff hopeful to on the outside looking in in a matter of weeks has clearly altered management’s mindset about who should be running the show.

On Monday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Stefen Rosner from The Hockey News joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to describe why the Islanders made the switch at this point of the year, and in a season that had relatively low expectations coming into it.

Stefen Rosner: Things change. I think this year was supposed to be an evaluation year to see what Matthew Schaefer and all that stuff, but then it became clear that the Islanders can make the playoffs and Mathieu Darche went and got players and he hoped would help make that a reality. I think, even if he gets in the first round, giving Schaefer, Callum Ritchie, those guys, that experience is so important. I think definitely things got to the point where Darche does make his moves and things aren’t going well and you can find a way to salvage it, you can.

So, to start the year, I don’t think the expectations from everyone on the outside was the Islanders were going to make the playoffs…things did change. Darche did give this roster more players to help make that a reality, and those moves haven’t panned out enough yet. I think the goal is to make the playoffs. It’s very important for this team to make the playoffs…We’ll see if DeBoer can get these guys in.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…