New York Islanders general manager Mathieu Darche did not make any noisy moves through trades and NHL free agency this summer. His biggest addition, on the surface, came before last season ended, when he fired Patrick Roy with four games remaining and hired the widely respected Peter DeBoer as head coach.If the Islanders are going to make a jump into the Stanley Cup playoffs after a late-season collapse in 2025-26, the 58-year-old DeBoer — who made three consecutive Western Conference finals with the Dallas Stars in his last stop — will need to foster internal growth and make structural changes.“I’m not throwing shade at last year’s team, because the record was very good and they had (91) points, but the foundation of their game as far as chances given up, they just bled way too many chances to really be successful long term in my eyes,” DeBoer told The Athletic in an interview last week. “That’s something we have to address quickly.”For DeBoer, his end-of-season arrival served as a head start for 2026-27. He was reluctant to accept the Islanders’ job with less than two weeks left in the season but now believes he’s “much further ahead because of it.” He gained familiarity with the local area and team facilities and was able to get an up-close look at his players, including Matthew Schaefer, Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal, whose speed he likes in the middle of the ice.NHL free agency: Early winners and losersShayna Goldman and Madison EadesDeBoer even reached out to his predecessor a few days after his arrival on Long Island. The new coach wanted everyone to have a fresh start under him, so the conversation with Roy revolved less around individual players and was more about the organization, staff and lifestyle that awaited him.“We’re a small fraternity,” DeBoer said. “There’s 32 jobs in the world for what we do at this level. I think there’s a lot of empathy amongst us for the situations we’re leaving and coming into.”DeBoer has spent most of his latest offseason in Ontario, but he also made trips to Dallas and Boston to attend World Cup soccer games. He returned to New York, too, for the NHL Draft, free agency and development camp.The expectations on DeBoer are different than they were when he took over his past two NHL teams. The Vegas Golden Knights held championship aspirations from the moment they hired DeBoer in 2020, and the Stars were a playoff team less than two calendar years removed from reaching the Stanley Cup Final when he got that job in 2022.The Islanders, meanwhile, have missed the playoffs each of the past two seasons.“I don’t think there’s any doubt: a little different spot than those other teams,” DeBoer said. “Having said that, the league has changed dramatically recently. When you look at last year and the teams that missed and the teams that made the playoffs, I don’t think anybody would have predicted some of the teams that missed. … I think there’s the ability for teams to make significant improvement quicker than maybe people think and also fall the other way quicker than people think.”