Where is the Canadiens’ defence coach? Have we run out of money?
Joe Bergeron
Stéphane Robidas is the Canadiens’ defence coach, hired two summers ago to replace Luke Richardson after he was hired as head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks.
While Robidas played 15 seasons in the NHL as a defenceman and spent four years in player development with the Toronto Maple Leafs, his only previous coaching experience was at the midget Triple-A level when he led the Cantonniers de Magog to the Quebec provincial championship in 2022. Head coach Martin St. Louis’s only coaching experience before joining the Canadiens was at the youth level with his three sons in Connecticut. Trevor Letowski, the third man behind the bench, was hired in 2021 after being head coach of the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires.
There’s not a lot of NHL coaching experience behind the bench and it shows with all the defensive-zone breakdowns. The Canadiens are giving up an average of 4.07 goals per game — the most in the NHL.
Robidas was hired to help with development of the young defencemen — which is fine — but I have maintained since Alex Burrows (who also had very little coaching experience) stepped down as an assistant coach during the off-season that the Canadiens need another assistant with much more NHL experience.
There is no salary cap on coaches.
Why does St. Louis have such immunity? Worst record of any Habs coach, still going. System breakdowns, still going. Look at Boston’s Jim Montgomery and Philadelphia’s John Tortorella. NHL coaches with hard coaching decisions.
JP Parent
GM Kent Hughes exercised the two-year option on St. Louis’s contract at the end of last season, meaning he is signed through the 2026-27 season for what CapFriendly reported at the time was worth US$3 million per season. Hughes and Jeff Gorton, the executive vice-president of hockey operations, are close with St. Louis and believe he’s the right coach to lead their rebuilding plan.
The Canadiens are a young team with 10 players age 23 or younger on the current roster and the focus remains on development, even though management said before the season it was hoping the team would be “in the mix” for a playoff spot. The pre-season knee injury suffered by Patrik Laine was a huge blow.
I believe the players are still buying what St. Louis is selling and his job is safe this season despite an overall coaching record of 79-108-28. I also believe — as noted above — he needs more help behind the bench.
Of all the veteran players nearing the end of their contracts, who do you think might get re-signed?
Mike Chow
David Savard, Christian Dvorak, Jake Evans, Joel Armia and Michael Pezzetta can all become unrestricted free agents next summer.
The only one I think might get re-signed is Evans, who has been one of the Canadiens’ best players in the final year of his contract that has a US$1.7 million salary-cap hit. Evans is only 28 and is a competent fourth-line centre who doesn’t cost much, is good on faceoffs and on the penalty-kill. He also enjoys playing in Montreal and is well-liked by his teammates.
Evans has been promoted to the second-line centre in recent games, a sign of the lack of depth at that position — especially with Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook now playing on the wing.
Why do college hockey players wear full facemasks and pros do not?
Richard Bonte
U.S. college players in the NCAA are mandated to wear full facemasks. In fact, every player in the NHL today wore a full facemask from the day they started playing hockey until they reached junior or the AHL, where only a half-visor is mandatory.
It will be interesting to see if an NHL player ever decides to keep a full facemask, but that seems unlikely.
There is peer pressure in pro hockey, where protecting yourself properly with equipment is seen as being soft. Players who wore helmets used to be considered soft, then it was the same with wearing visors. Now that’s the case with full facemasks.
Helmets were grandfathered in as mandatory by the NHL in 1979 and visors were grandfathered in 2013. There are now only five NHL players who don’t wear any facial protection: Dallas’s Jamie Benn, Nashville’s Ryan O’Reilly, Toronto’s Ryan Reaves, the New York Islanders’ Matt Martin and Minnesota’s Zach Bogosian.
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