MONTREAL — No one told Patrick Roy what was coming during the national anthem on Thursday.
So when the Canadiens interspersed a slideshow of photos from Roy’s playing days with the pregame rendition of “O Canada,” Roy was as surprised as anyone.
After spending the buildup to his return to Montreal insisting on putting the focus on the Islanders, here came proof positive that hope was in vain as cheers turned to rapture once the scoreboard camera panned to Roy’s No. 33, then to the Islanders’ new head coach.
“I’d like to thank the Montreal Canadiens for that. It was really nice what they did,” Roy said following the Isles’ 4-3 loss. “Fans were just, like usual, this is a good crowd. It’s like in New York. Good fans, they love their team, they want to support. I’m thankful.”
However much Roy attempted to downplay it, his first game coaching in Montreal since 2016 was a media circus as he received a hero’s welcome.
It seems that every figure in this city has a story about Roy — watching him, meeting him, hearing their parents talk about him.
That includes Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, who reminisced Wednesday about scoring a goal on Roy at age 12 during a PeeWee tournament.
“Every year, I think, they had a Humpty Dumpty practice where fans would come and watch the Canadiens practice. And then my team went on the ice and everybody took a breakaway, a shootout attempt against Patrick,” St. Louis told reporters. “Patrick poke-checked me, he made it easy on us, but I flipped it over him and I scored.”
St. Louis played against Roy in the NHL, too, and now counts him as a coaching contemporary. But once an idol, always an idol.
“The amount of time I was Patrick Roy in the street playing goalie, we all admired him and idolized him,” St. Louis said. “And so he meant a lot to me. The rest of the kids growing up here, he was kind of the backbone of the French guys for a long time.”
There was no update on Adam Pelech’s condition after he left the game in the third period following an elbow to the head from Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher, earning Gallagher a five-minute major and ejection.
Hudson Fasching also left the game for good during the first period after sliding into the end boards on a breakaway.
Semyon Varlamov stopped 22 of 26 shots in his first game since Jan. 2.
Roy said that Lou Lamoriello called to tell him he would be hired last Friday, the same day the Islanders faced the Blackhawks in what turned out to be Lane Lambert’s final game as head coach.
