The Hockey News ran a poll ahead of the season, and a few Montreal Canadiens fared very well, including coach Martin St-Louis.
As we approach the start of the season, The Hockey News polled 39 of its writers and contributors on various topics, including who will win every major award, and one Montreal Canadiens emerged as the frontrunner for the Jack Adams Trophy: Martin St-Louis.
Last year, the Habs coach finished fifth in the race for the top coach trophy. He had 50 voting points. Jon Cooper, who won the hardware, had 226 points; runner-up Lindy Ruff had 223, and Dan Muise finished third with 199. In fourth place, Jared Bednar had 66. But the voting only included the regular season; whatever happened in the playoffs wasn’t part of the equation.
Now, though, everyone has seen St-Louis outduel reigning Jack Adams winner Cooper in the first round. The veteran coach had the upper hand at first, but St-Louis gradually realized his first line wasn’t going to figure out the matchup and that he needed to match up with Cooper. Had he not done that, the Canadiens likely wouldn't have come out on top.
The Habs then beat the Buffalo Sabres in seven games before ultimately being eliminated in five games in the Conference Final by Rod Brind’Amour and the Carolina Hurricanes. Was St-Louis outcoached in that series? Yes, but not in a matchup kind of sense. The Canes' advantage was that Brind’Amour has been with his team so long that he's had time to make them buy into the details we’ve heard so much about since the Habs’ elimination. Brind’Amour is about to enter his ninth season with Carolina, and in the last few years, they’ve had plenty of disappointment trying to reach the Cup. They’ve stumbled numerous times, as the Habs did last season. Those disappointments help players understand why those details matter.
The Canadiens are a young group still learning; they picked up valuable experience last spring, and they’ve seen firsthand what doing the small things means in the playoffs and how far it can take you. This season, when St-Louis insists on those details, they’ll have the elimination fresh in their mind, and they’ll be as receptive as can be.
Furthermore, last season, defense and the penalty kill were big concerns for the Canadiens. This year, St-Louis will have some help in that department in new associate coach Derek Lalonde. That’s his specialty, so it's hard to doubt that this side of the Habs’ game will improve this season, meaning St-Louis will look better come voting time at the end of the season.
Some would argue that St-Louis isn't exactly fair with all his players; they are quick to point out that some players have a shorter leash than others. For instance, one Arber Xhekaj mistake lands the blueliner on the bench for quite some time, whereas one Mike Matheson mistake is no big deal, but the leash- the confidence is earned. Xhekaj doesn’t have the same body, work, or ceiling as Matheson. One is a top-pairing defenseman, and the other is struggling to stay in the lineup. When Lane Hutson came into the lineup, he wasn’t given the PP1 seat right away; he had to earn it. For St-Louis, some player qualities matter more than others to play his brand of hockey, and that’s how he evaluates his players.
In any case, there’s a lot of hockey to be played before the voting for the Jack Adams Trophy is done, but as things stand, St-Louis looks like he's at the helm of a very good team and that he has everything he needs to make it perform even better than it did last season.
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