Feb. 9 will mark the third anniversary of the Canadiens hiring Martin St. Louis as head coach.
St. Louis was given an interim tag at the time in large part because he had never coached behind an NHL bench. After completing his Hall of Fame playing career, St. Louis coached his three sons in Connecticut’s Mid-Fairfield Youth Hockey Association. Making the jump from there to the NHL was a huge one, but Canadiens GM Kent Hughes had full confidence in St. Louis.
Hughes met with the media for his mid-season news conference Wednesday in Brossard with the Canadiens holding a 19-18-3 record and sitting only one point out of the final wild-card playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. They are 8-2-0 in their last 10 games.
In Year 3 of the rebuilding plan, St. Louis is showing why Hughes had faith in him as an NHL head coach.
“What impresses me is the reason we hired him in the first place,” Hughes said. “We hired a guy without experience, but because of the qualities that he brings. It was his analytical mind, his emotional intelligence, his leadership qualities, his hockey IQ.
“I had said he’s got an interim label but I, for one, would rather bet on than against Martin St. Louis,” Hughes added. “You see again that this is somebody that rises up to challenges. He doesn’t shrink. He’s adaptable, he’s bright, he’s able to make adjustments. We hired a guy without experience — we expect that with each week, with each month, with each year he has that experience. He’s now been a head coach for three years. If you are that type of personality that he is you expect that he continues to get better.”
While St. Louis is still a month away from his third anniversary with the Canadiens, he ranks sixth among NHL head coaches in longevity with one team. The only coaches ahead of him are the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Jon Cooper (hired on March 25, 2013), Mike Sullivan of the Pittsburgh Penguins (Dec. 12, 2015), Jared Bednar of the Colorado Avalanche (Aug. 25, 2016), Rod Brind’Amour of the Carolina Hurricanes (May 8, 2018) and André Tourigny of the Utah Hockey Club (July 1, 2021).
After Alex Burrows stepped down as an assistant coach with the Canadiens last summer, it seemed like a good time to add an assistant with more NHL experience to help St. Louis behind the bench. That didn’t happen.
“Marty wanted to handle the power play, which was a principle responsibility that Alex had undertaken and that he wanted to wait and see,” Hughes said. “He wanted to have a better feel for what he needed and we were prepared to support him in that role.”
Hughes didn’t rule out the possibility of adding another assistant coach with NHL experience in the future.
“Going forward, I don’t know what we do going into next season, whether it’s the status quo or he comes back and says, ‘Hey, I need this or I want that,’” Hughes said. “I’d like again to kind of be adaptable. … We’ll see what happens in the off-season, whether he feels like he needs somebody or we feel like he needs something. We’ll have collaborative discussions and hopefully make the right decision.”
It certainly looks now like the Canadiens made the right decision when they hired St. Louis.
Hughes said it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that management wasn’t happy with the start of this season when the team wasn’t playing up to its ability and some individuals weren’t playing up to their potential. The GM noted that confidence was dropping and the team was becoming fragile, which was highlighted by a 9-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins at the Bell Centre on Dec. 12. Hughes added that in a market like Montreal, with all the outside noise, it becomes more difficult to stay focused. It was also the first time during this rebuild that there was negativity directed at the hockey-operations department and St. Louis about how they were running the team.
Hughes gave credit to St. Louis for making adjustments and for players picking up their games to get things back on track. The addition of defenceman Alexandre Carrier in a trade with the Nashville Predators on Dec. 18 and calling up goalie Jakub Dobes from the AHL’s Laval Rocket on Dec. 27 also helped.
Hughes said that a comeback 3-2 win over the Golden Knights on New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas after falling behind 2-0 in the first period was a big sign that confidence had returned and the team has learned to “bend but not break.”
“There’s a certain culture being established in the room that I’ve seen with other organizations,” Hughes said, looking back to his days as a player agent.
The GM added that winning culture is something that gets passed on from year to year, from veteran players to young players and that in order to win a team needs to reach a point where individual objectives aren’t put aside, but are assimilated with team goals.
“It’s not easy, but when it doesn’t happen I find it’s very difficult in sports to win,” Hughes said. “And we’re starting to see that here.”
St. Louis deserves much of the credit for that.