The Canadiens have evolved and improved greatly as a team since Martin St. Louis took over as head coach almost four years ago.
When the Canadiens fired Dominique Ducharme on Feb. 9, 2022, they had an 8-30-7 record and were in last place in the overall NHL standings.
The Canadiens are now sitting in first place in the Atlantic Division with a 10-3-2 record and are battling for first place in the overall NHL standings heading into Tuesday’s game against the Los Angeles Kings at the Bell Centre (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS).
We have all seen the improvement on the ice, but how has St. Louis evolved and improved most as a coach since the Canadiens hired the Hall of Fame player with no coaching experience behind an NHL bench?
“I don’t know,” St. Louis said after a long pause when I asked him that question following practice Monday in Brossard. “I mean, I feel the more reps you get behind the bench, managing games, matchups, whatever — I feel I’ve evolved in that and I still have a ways to go. But I think the more reps you get you understand how the league works, the teams that play a certain way and what raises the percentage to beat that. I feel in terms of pre-scouting and that kind of stuff I feel like I’ve evolved with the amounts of reps I’m getting. That’s actually one of my favourite things to do as a coach.
“But it’s hard to pick one thing,” St. Louis added. “I have more experience.”
Jeff Gorton, the president of hockey operations, and GM Kent Hughes said they wanted a “modern-day” coach and the Canadiens were in a position to let St. Louis gain experience behind the bench when they hired him. The only coaching experience St. Louis had was with his three sons in Connecticut’s Mid-Fairfield Youth Hockey Association.
After being hired by the Canadiens, St. Louis said there’s not a big difference when it comes to coaching kids or NHL players. But one big difference is running an NHL bench and it took St. Louis time to learn that.
“The first game, it was so fast on the ice … I couldn’t believe the speed of the game,” St. Louis recalled about his first game with the Canadiens, a 5-2 loss to the Washington Capitals at the Bell Centre. “But two, three games in it slowed way down. At the youth level it was easy, you just rolled the lines and everybody played the power play. It was fun, it was easy. Let’s go. At the NHL level, you got to be a little more calculated. I feel I’ve come a long way and I’ve got a ways to go.”
Centre Jake Evans is in his seventh season with the Canadiens, during which time he has had three head coaches — Claude Julien, Ducharme and St. Louis. He said St. Louis’s biggest improvement since being hired is the way he’s able to run the bench.
“When he first started I think he was just watching the games and forgetting at some points who to call (for line changes),” Evans said. “He’s definitely gotten a lot better at that. He looks at ice time a lot, he looks at certain scenarios and he knows who could excel in certain situations, so it’s easy for players to kind of get a read on when they’re going to be going out. He’s got a good flow to it now. It’s hard as a head coach to call lines and actually watch the whole game.”
St. Louis is the epitome of a modern-day coach — much different from old-school former NHL coaches like John Tortorella, Mike Babcock and Mike Keenan. St. Louis spoke recently about how he has empathy for his players and feels like he can help them whether they made a mistake on the ice or are going through a hard time. He’s a talker and teacher, not a yeller.
That’s something Evans really appreciates.
“He treats us as equals, it feels like,” Evans said. “Sometimes I feel like there’s that level of you almost don’t even want to go near your coach and let him do his thing. But for Marty it’s easy to talk to him and then just the passion that he has for the game and how much he knows about it and trying to help all of us out.”
Apart from learning how to run an NHL bench better, Evans said St. Louis hasn’t changed much since joining the Canadiens.
“In a lot of ways he’s the same,” Evans said. “He’s got the same belief, the same passion. I think just the expectations and standards for us has changed. I think he knows we’re an older team now. We had a bad game and instead of dwelling on it and trying to fix everything we stuck with it and he knows it was a one-off. There’s things like that.
“I think he’s becoming more experienced and trusting us more and expecting more out of us.”
The results speak for themselves.
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