Islanders coach Patrick Roy makes surprising admission as he returns to Denver for first time since shock Avalanche resignation

DENVER — Patrick Roy had done the hard part, looking inward and shifting his methods, going back to junior hockey with the Quebec Remparts and proving he could still win there. This was everything in his power to prove, after a shock resignation ended his tenure coaching the Avalanche in 2016, that he could still one day coach in the NHL.

What came next was, arguably, harder, because Roy could only take on a role of passivity. He waited.

After winning the Memorial Cup with the Remparts in 2023, Roy decamped to Florida, deciding to leave the QMJHL. He was getting more calls from NHL teams and had some interviews. None worked out. He knew it was an acute possibility that his only future would be on the golf course.

“I wasn’t sure if I was going to be back in the game,” Roy told The Post ahead of returning to Denver for the first time as head coach of the Islanders. “When I made my decision to resign in Colorado, I kinda knew about that, that that might be a possibility. But I guess my thoughts — I never thought it would be that long.”

The specter of Roy coaching again in Denver, where he won two of his four Stanley Cup titles as a player, won’t quite match that of his first game back in Montreal, when the Canadiens interspersed a photo slideshow of Roy with O Canada — literally using their franchise legend as a stand-in for country — but Monday’s return will be watched across hockey nonetheless.

Roy came into Denver like a thunderclap, getting a young Avalanche team which had gone 16-25-7 in a lockout-shortened season a year prior to win 52 games and make the playoffs in his first season. He left the same way three years later a month before training camp, with that first season having been a high watermark, releasing a statement citing a lack of alignment with general manager Joe Sakic.