CALGARY, Alberta — Before the Islanders’ 4-2 loss Saturday against the Flames, coach Patrick Roy was asked about something he’d said two days prior: that he keeps waiting for Matthew Schaefer to hit the rookie wall, and it still hasn’t happened.
The arc of Schaefer’s rookie season has indeed defied any reasonable expectations. For his fellow rookie Cal Ritchie, a highly touted prospect in his own right, though not with the No. 1 overall pedigree of Schaefer, it’s been a little more conventional.
That means the play he made on Calgary’s second goal, when Adam Klapka boxed out Ritchie in front of the net, should be taken as part of the process.
That goal did prompt Roy to start messing with his lines, occasionally skipping over Ritchie on an afternoon when the Islanders as a whole were struggling to capitalize on their chances.
Overall, though, the head coach is more than happy with where Ritchie’s game is right now.
“Played really well against the Oilers,” Roy said of Ritchie before the game. “I was very happy. He made a super nice play on that power-play goal to Anthony Duclair [Thursday night]. I’m very pleased with him.”
Indeed, even Ritchie’s struggles haven’t been without flashes. The spin-o-rama pass he made to Duclair, for example, came on a night where Ritchie’s line didn’t record a shot on net at 5-on-5. Even on Saturday, Ritchie came away with an assist on Anders Lee’s 6-on-5 goal.
Roy said his philosophy with Schaefer is: “Let him play.”
It doesn’t seem to be much different with Ritchie.
“Nobody tried to monitor me when I was playing,” Roy said. “Give [him] the rope and let the guy play.”
David Rittich didn’t have any sentimental words about facing his former team when asked about returning to Calgary on Friday.
“No. Hell no,” he said. “There is not many guys anyway in that locker room who I played with. Obviously, there are some memories I like to think about, but not sentiment at all.”
The Flames didn’t seem to have any sentiment for Rittich — who returned here previously as an L.A. King, Winnipeg Jet and Nashville Predator — either. In his 250th career start, he couldn’t get his first win against his old club, dropping to 0-4-2 in six games against Calgary.
