Patrick Roys Islanders dial up intensity on Day 1

If you were on social media anytime Thursday, you would’ve noticed a lot of teams around the NHL doing bag skates.If you were around the Islanders this time last season, you would’ve noticed Lane Lambert doing the same.So by that standard, Day 1 of Patrick Roy’s training camp was unremarkable.But Mat Barzal was never doubled over looking gassed after training camp a year ago.On Thursday, other Islanders took solace in the fact that Barzal — who thrives on these days of endless skating — was just as exhausted as the rest of them.“I loved it,” Roy said after the third 90-minute session of a grueling first day of camp wrapped up.“They knew they were going to work, and they did.

And that’s exactly what I was looking for.”Much was made when Roy was hired in January about his setting a new tone.The Islanders, through a combination of inertia and Lambert simply being ill-fitted as a head coach, had gotten too passive in their game and far too easy to play against.

That changed enough to get them into the playoffs, but everyone involved acknowledges a major midseason overhaul was not, in a perfect world, how things would have happened.Roy’s first training camp and his first full season behind the bench is a better chance to see his impact in full, though if last year was a half-measure, it was a pretty good one.As camp opened Thursday, it looked like a practice focused not just on endurance but physicality.Before they did the skating drills that left them keeled over, the Islanders focused mainly on one-on-one battles and “second quick,” Roy’s term for defensive support.“Honestly you can’t be ready for it, even if you practice, if you’re skating like that all summer long,” Alexander Romanov said.“Before [doing suicides], we spent one hour doing one-on-one battles, so you can be prepared for everything.“You should be tired.

This is a goal of this practice: to make you tired and prepare you for the next game, which is gonna be this S...