Islanders Fire Head Coach Patrick Roy, Announce Hiring Of Peter Deboer

The Islanders have fired head coach PatrickRoy with four games remaining in the regular season, general manager Mathieu Darche announced on Sunday. 

Peter DeBoer was named the new head coach in a hiring that will last for the remainder of the 2025-26 campaign, plus four more seasons, per Andy Strickland.

The Isles are expected to retain all of their assistant coaches for the time being, according to Arthur Staple.

Roy's firing comes amid a slump that has seen the Isles lose seven of the last 10 games, as they have gone from looking certain to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs to a team on the brink of seeing their season end. Roy had two years remaining on his contract.

New York, losers of four straight after a 4-3 defeat to Carolina on Saturday, enters Sunday one point ahead of Philadelphia and Columbus for the final spot as the third-place team in the Metropolitan division, but has two games in hand over the Flyers and one game over the Blue Jackets. 

The Isles are also in a precarious position when it comes to the wild card, as Ottawa (who occupy the final spot) and Detroit are both one point behind in the standings and with two games in hand. (The Boston Bruins, in the first wild card spot, enter Sunday five points ahead of the Islanders.)

The Islanders are back on the ice Thursday, at home to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

DeBoer comes to New York after spending three seasons behind the bench in Dallas, where he led the Stars to three consecutive conference finals appearances and a 149-58-29 regular season record. DeBoer was fired last June, with some of his public comments about goaltender Jake Oettinger after a Game 5 loss a week prior contributing to his dismissal. 

Before that, he spent three seasons in Vegas, leading the Golden Knights to the conference finals twice. He also spent five seasons as the head coach in San Jose, making the playoffs four times, four seasons with the Devils, with one postseason trip, and three unsuccessful seasons with Florida. 

He has made two trips to the Stanley Cup Final, but came up short with the Devils in 2012 and the Sharks in 2016.

DeBoer has a 662-447-152 record (.585 points percentage) during his 18-year head coaching career, and is 97-82 (.542 winning percentage) in the playoffs.

Roy, who was hired in January 2024 after New York fired Lane Lambert, went 20-12-5 down the stretch, but was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. He missed the playoffs in his second season and departed with a 97-78-22 record (.548 points percentage) for his time with the Islanders.