Watching Patrick Roy coach was a little bit like watching Picasso using Microsoft Paint.
Here was an all-time great at a skill adjacent to coaching, grappling with the reality that the traits which made him a Hall of Fame player only kind of, sort of translated behind the bench. It was obvious how well he knew hockey, obvious he could motivate a room, obvious how much he cared and obvious that he was willing to study himself and try to change in ways unusual for someone of his stature.
Roy was an open book in public and would tell you with no hesitation that he regretted how things ended in his first NHL stint in Colorado. Head coaches in professional sports tend to be good liars. Roy was honest to a fault, and a terrible liar. It became an open secret that he and Lou Lamoriello struggled to get along last season, largely because the whole league paid attention when Roy struggled to conceal his true thoughts on the roster in public.
In the years between NHL jobs, Roy worked on being calmer and how he communicated with players. Then he worked on it some more after his old tendencies got the best of him last season when he mercilessly ripped Anthony Duclair in public.
