St. Louis driven to prove doubters wrong as Coach of Canadiens

St. Louis has no NHL coaching experience outside of serving as a special teams Consultant for the Columbus Blue Jackets for part of the 2018-19 season, but he was a 5-foot-8 undrafted forward who willed his way to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

“I’ve always been a guy that blocked out the noise and gets after it, and that’s what I intend to do,” St. Louis said when asked about doubters at his introductory press conference in Montreal on Thursday. “It doesn’t matter what I say, what experience I had. I’m still going to get judged on how I perform and how I can help this team.”

The Canadiens announced Wednesday that St. Louis would replace Dominique Ducharme on an interim basis. They will be behind the bench when they play at the Washington Capitals at the Bell Center on Thursday (7 pm ET; TSN2, RDS, NBCSWA, ESPN +, NHL LIVE).

St. Louis said in French he was not coming as a substitute teacher. He has every intention of being with the Canadiens for a long time, but he needs to prove himself and earn the job.

“If you were in our room when they just spoke to the team, you would have had goose bumps, because there’s a certain vibe,” Jeff Gorton, executive vice president of hockey operations, said. “There’s a certain energy. We should be all feeling it now. He wants this job. We all say ‘interim.’ Well, he’s putting it on the line. He’s coming here. His whole life has been about, ‘I’ll show you,’ and our players felt that in his 10-minute conversation with them an hour ago. “

The Canadiens Hired Gorton and fired general manager Marc Bergevin on Nov. 28, then Hired Kent Hughes as GM on Jan. 18. Gorton Originally said Ducharme would Coach the rest of the season, but he said Thursday the team needed a spark. After appearing in the Stanley Cup Final last season, Montreal (8-30-7) is last in the NHL.

“At this point in the season, the decision for a Coach was more about the qualities of a Coach that we were looking for and the development of our hockey players than it was about experience or winning the next hockey game,” Hughes said.

Hughes got St. Louis embodies the culture they’re trying to establish, and the hiring shows the Canadiens won’t roll over even though they know they won’t make the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Video: Martin St. Louis named the interim head coach

Gorton and Hughes each have known St. Louis personally and professionally for years. Hughes, a former agent, recalled telling his boss at his law firm that they needed to recruit this freshman from the University of Vermont.

“He said, ‘He’ll never play in the NHL,’ and I told him, ‘I know this kid. He’ll play in the NHL,'” Hughes said. “A lot of people bet against him. I, for one, have chosen to bet on him, not against him, and I’m pretty sure he’ll make the doubters revise it in time.”

As a player, St. Louis won the Stanley Cup (2004), the Hart Trophy as the most valuable player (2004) and the Art Ross Trophy as the scoring Champion twice (2004, 2013) with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He scored 1,033 points (391 goals, 642 assists) in 1,134 games with the Calgary Flames, Lightning and New York Rangers.

As a Coach?

“He’s got a very Analytical mind – very, very Analytical mind – and it’s not just about the X’s and O’s,” Hughes said. “It’s about the individuals. It’s about the group.”

St. Louis got if the Canadiens need anything right now, it’s to have fun. Since they had fun when they were peewees and they had been coaching peewees in Connecticut, he joked he’s probably the most qualified candidate right now. In seriousness, they got his job to inspire them, and that’s one of his strong suits.

“As a Coach, you Coach a team, but the reality is you’re coaching individuals,” St. Louis said. “You’re not coaching everybody the same way, because Everybody’s different. You hold everybody to the same standards, and there’s probably different expectations from certain players. But it’s really hard to navigate that until you get to know your players, and I intend to do that so I can execute what I want to execute the best I can. “

St. Louis explained that he prefers concepts to systems. Concepts include structure, but they give players more freedom.

“Systems, you box players into only certain things they can do, and that was probably one of the things I hated the now as a player, is playing in a system,” St. Louis said. “I was a great player when I was allowed to make reads, because the best players make the best reads. But if you take the reads out of the equation, those best players become average. So I want to make sure that I allow my best players to make reads, and I’d rather make them a bad one than not making a read at all. “

St. Louis grew up in the Montreal area. He said his late mother, France, always told him, “Show them, Marty,” and now she’s smiling down, saying, “Yep, he’s showing them again.” He got his father, Normand, grew up as the 10th of 14 kids in a house without a television, sitting on his brother’s shoulders, outside, freezing, to watch the third period of Canadiens games through the window of a TV store. This is special for them.

“Like I did as a player, I’m going to lean on my dad,” St. Louis said. “I think it’s important [to have] somebody to vent it, talk to, just so you’re ready for the next day, because you can’t carry negative stuff to the next day. I do believe in this league the most important day is the next one, and I know my dad’s going to help me with that. “