Exactly two weeks had passed since Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis was asked why he didn’t spend more time working on the power play in practice, and his answer was very revealing about who he is as a coach, his beliefs and his principles.
Martin St. Louis’ decorated playing career earned him a spot in Toronto at the Hockey Hall of Fame. But he almost didn’t make it to Tampa.
Coach spent his day off watching video of Habs’ victory over Canucks, video of his son playing and talking hockey with his dad over dinner.
It’s in between morning meetings and the Canadiens are taking to the ice for their last practice at their south-shore training facility before the start of the regular season that Martin St. Louis carves out 20 minutes for an interview.
Hall of Fame player still remembers his first training camp as an invite by Ottawa Senators and is still using lessons learned from that.
The former defenseman enjoyed a long NHL career, before turning to coaching and player development.
It had been roughly a week since Martin St. Louis had been named coach of the Canadiens when he walked into the interview room at the team’s practice facility in Brossard and spelled out his No. 1 principle when it comes to player development.
Montreal coach happy with his team’s effort in 3-2 overtime loss to the Bruins Monday night at the Bell Centre.
“You got to fight what your brain’s telling you because it’s easy to take the easy way out,” Habs coach said before 4-3 OT win over Flyers.
“I’m very blessed to have such a great wife that again allows me to pursue a dream that I always wanted,” Canadiens interim head coach says.
Martin St. Louis’ path to an NHL coaching job has been anything but typical — jumping straight from leading kids in bantam and prep school to coaching the Montreal Canadiens.
It came off as a joke, and it probably was.
But there was some truth behind it, as it turns out.
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