Patrick Roy is not fooled: he is very aware that his return to Montreal, behind the bench of the New York Islanders, will be the topic of the day in the metropolis. And he has no intention of letting those distractions affect his players.

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Roy completed a training session in New York on Wednesday before heading to Montreal. The Islanders will not be active Thursday morning.

The goal of these two decisions is to keep the players as far away as possible from the media attention that Thursday night's game against the Canadian will generate.

“The reason we went on the ice today is because we don’t want any distractions. There will be no morning training, the boys will stay in the hotel and concentrate on the game. I don't want this day to be about me, but about the islanders. We go there to win a hockey game, we don't go there for the coach.

“I don't want there to be a morning training because the media will ask them questions about me, they will tell them this or that and I don't need that, neither do they,” he assured the New York media at the end of the training the Team.

Roy in the Martin St Louis Room

In addition, according to media reports, the Islanders have been preparing for Roy's arrival in Montreal. As previously mentioned, the team will not train in the morning and players will not be made available to the media until after the game.

However, Roy will speak to the Montreal press around 4:15 p.m. Canadiens vice-president of communications Chantal Machabée also offered to let the Islanders use the team's press conference room, where Martin St-Louis normally meets the media, knowing that an exceptional number of media would travel to meet Roy speak.