The Montreal Canadiens have made it official, announcing Martin St. Louis as the 32nd head coach in franchise history. The interim tag has been lifted, and St. Louis has signed a three-year contract, keeping him behind the bench through the 2024-25 season. Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes released the following statement:
We are happy to officially appoint Martin as head coach of the Montreal Canadiens. Martin is a proven leader, a great communicator with a deep understanding of and passion for the game of hockey. His arrival brought a renewed energy to our group, and we look forward to him returning behind the bench to continue guiding our team for the foreseeable future.
St. Louis, 46, immediately impacted the Canadiens after taking over from Dominique Ducharme last season. The Hall of Fame player jumped behind the bench for the first time and guided the club to a 14-19-4 record down the stretch. While those numbers aren’t impressive in a vacuum, when compared to the 8-30-7 that Ducharme had recorded, St. Louis was obviously a vast improvement.
Perhaps most notable was the transformation of young sniper Cole Caufield. A player that has heard comparisons to St. Louis for years because of their shared stature, Caufield had just one goal in the entire season before the coaching change. Suddenly he found life under his new bench boss and managed 22 goals in 37 games under St. Louis, incredibly leading Montreal in goals despite his brutal start. If Caufield’s emergence was important, it certainly was a nice sign for St. Louis’ future with the club.
Just because he’d never coached at the NHL level before, doesn’t mean that St. Louis has no connections to talent at that level. Not only does he have a long history with Hughes and fellow executive Jeff Gorton, but other young players have also explained how familiar they are with the legendary player from his days coaching minor hockey. Even Shane Wright, the potential first-overall pick for Montreal at this year’s draft, told Mike Zeisberger of NHL.com yesterday that he had played against a team coached by St. Louis in the past.
As a player, St. Louis was rather unique. Undrafted, the 5’8″ forward from the University of Vermont started things off with the Calgary Flames but famously found himself on waivers early on. When he ended up with the Tampa Bay Lightning, things clicked and he would go on to become one of the most consistent offensive players in the league for the next decade. In total, he played in 1,134 regular season games and racked up 1,033 points, won the Stanley Cup, Olympic gold, and many individual awards. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2019, a few years after retirement.
It may be a risk to hire a coach with such little experience behind the bench, but this is no ordinary coach. The Canadiens will hope that his unique hockey story continues with success in this next chapter.
This is going to be short and bittersweet
Whatever….you can only go up from here
Leave It to Montreal to hire a coach based on his name and not his resume, No wonder the Canadiens are a dumpster fire.
Who do you think they should have hired?
DeBour? Trotz? Maurice?
None of those guys have won the cup. St. Louis has (as a player)
Quenneville? (Too much baggage). Vigneault (been there, done that). Boudreau (he would have been a good choice, but probably staying in Van City)
More importantly is that the young kids on the team Suzuki and Caufield both played well under St. Louis, and those are the guys Montreal upper management wants to keep happy
Trotz has won a cup.
Crap. My bad.
Yeah you’re correct.
Forgot those years in Washington.
What kind of “risk” could this possibly be? Montreal was the worst team in the league last year. Unless the NHL starts relegating their bottom feeders, it’s not as if St Louis could possibly do poorer.
Good pick. The man is a winner.