When Patrick Roy was playing, he never wanted the goalie coach to show his mistakes in front of the team.
He preferred to go over that tape in private, where his errors wouldn’t be on display to all his teammates watching.
So as a coach, Roy makes a point of one-on-one film work to examine spots where his players need to iron out their games.
“First of all, there is that structure part with what you want. And then after that, who loves to be seen on a negative clip in front of his teammates? No one likes that,” Roy said following Friday’s Islanders practice. “So I prefer to do one-on-one and see the correction that I think needs to be made.
“Is it more work for me? Yeah, it is. But I’m here to work.”
Roy has already mentioned working privately with Oliver Wahlstrom and Pierre Engvall, among others, and the results are coming.
Wahlstrom looks more confident than at any other time this season and was involved in a goal in Thursday’s win over the Lightning when he cleared out space in front of the net before Noah Dobson’s shot bounced off a Tampa defender and in.
Engvall will take a two-game point streak into Saturday’s match against the Flames — his first time with points in consecutive games since Nov. 30-Dec. 2.
“He’s been showing a lot of film for me,” Engvall told The Post of his work with Roy. “We’ve also been talking a lot about the ways he thinks our line can work better. Small details but they make a big impact.”
Engvall’s line with Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri, by the way, produced a 70.6 percent expected goals rate against the Lightning.
“I think a lot of it comes down to being a little bit harder on the puck,” Engvall sid. “Being more aggressive all over the ice, play a bit harder. I think the last two games here we’ve been working really hard as a line to win the pucks back. Just staying on top of the guys. And it’s fun playing out there.”
As for Wahlstrom, Roy wants him playing physically, but with purpose — not merely throwing his body around.
“He’s all about on forecheck and things like that, don’t let the guy beat you in the battle or up the ice,” Wahlstrom told The Post Thursday. “It’s on you when you want to finish or not, but just make sure you don’t let that guy beat you up the ice. He wants you to dig pucks out and play offense. It’s awesome.”
It’s rare in the NHL for a head coach to take time to work with individuals the way Roy has. But he is trying to build a system midseason that asks the Islanders to change a lot about their identity, which is no easy task.
“Even if you tried to make it probably 80 percent of the guys understand exactly what I’m looking for. Sometimes there’s just 20 percent that they think they understand,” Roy said. “So it’s just nice to take the time one-on-one and making sure that they do understand exactly what you’re looking for.”
If it wasn’t already clear from the way the Islanders played during the 6-2 win over Tampa on Thursday, Roy confirmed that players have reacted to the sessions exactly how he wants them to react.
“I never see any bad response,” he said. “I always felt like the guys enjoyed that. I’m there to help them. I’m there to help them become the best version of themselves. So I feel like we’ve been doing this in junior [with the Quebec Remparts], the guys love it. I feel like it’s the same thing for them.”