Habs News: Montreal, Canadiens, Habs, NHL, Martin St. Louis, Stephane Robidas, Kent Hughes, Vincent Lecavalier, Rookies
ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | MONTREAL, QC. — Listening to a recent episode of the Canadiens Connection podcast, I learned that seasoned NHL executive Gordie Clark would be joining the Canadiens’ managerial team in an unspecified position.
For an organization that has recently hired many inexperienced candidates, hiring Clark is surprising.
Clark has a combined 35 years of experience in coaching and hockey operations with the Bruins, Islanders and Rangers. He held the title of director of scouting, assistant general manager, director of player personnel and director of amateur scouting at different times in his career.
Clark has now become one of the few experienced members of the Canadiens organization. He joins a select group of veteran hockey minds in the front office. With him, only Gorton, John Sedgwick (Assistant General Manager), Martin Lapointe (Director of Player Personnel and Amateur Scouting) and Nick Bobrov (Co-Director of Amateur Scouting) have more than five years of experience in NHL hockey operations.
Kent Hughes and Vincent Lecavalier are well known in hockey circles but remain ‘rookies’ in their new roles.
Behind the bench, Martin St-Louis, Stephane Robidas, Alex Burrows and Trevor Letowski had little to no coaching experience at the NHL level when they joined the organization.
In the player development team, Rob Ramage is the only veteran. He manages the department with Francis Bouillon, Nick Carriere and Marie-Philipp Poulin.
Finally, Adam Nicholas, the Director of Hockey Development, has only a few years of NHL experience under his belt.
In other words, the Canadiens’ hockey operations crew is inexperienced. This could have positive or negative impacts on the team and their rebuild. Let’s see what some of these impacts might be.
Communication with players
There are reasons to believe the young Canadiens coaching and development staff will adopt a philosophy that favors good communication with players.
For example, on April 9th, only two months after St-Louis was named the new Canadiens head coach, the Montreal Gazette reported that players “say that Martin St. Louis’s honesty and communication skills are two things that have really impressed him.”
Darren Dreger also stated on Twitter that “St. Louis is an excellent communicator, fully engaged in analytics and a qualified teacher.”
“In addition to being an exceptional individual, [Robidas] is a very good communicator..”
Other members of the organization are also praised for their ability to communicate. Stephane Robidas is purportedly one of them. According to St. Louis, “Stephane perfectly matches the profile we were looking for in a candidate. In addition to being an exceptional individual, he is a very good communicator, and I believe that players will relate to him because of that.”
Poulin also seems to have similar skills. At the Canadiens’ development camp, second-round draft pick Owen Beck had the chance to skate and train with Poulin and said that “having one simple conversation with her is fantastic. You learn so much from it.”
These quotes show that the rookie coaches and development staff members bring something very positive to the team: their communication skills.
A newcomer’s passion
Another positive element that rookie coaches can bring to the team is passion. I am sure that all NHL coaches are passionate about hockey. However, there can be an additional fervor when you first start a job.
So far, St. Louis is showing that passion. This is exemplified by a practice video posted on Twitter on October 4th. St. Louis is not only giving directions with intensity, he even shows a demonstration of a defensive slide on the power-play.
https://twitter.com/MA_PerreaultTVA/status/1577310979490193408
That passion is something that players can feel and respond to. It’s one of the positive aspects of having an inexperienced staff.
Rookie decision-making
Unfortunately, communication and passion aren’t enough to get results. The Habs preseason record was 0-6-2.
Obviously, this losing record cannot entirely be attributed to the coaching staff. However, the Canadiens need to improve in many aspects of the game, notably the power-play. In their eight preseason games, the Canadiens scored seven goals in 38 power-play opportunities, a 18.4 percent success rate.
Yet, the power-play strategy did not change since the start of the pre-season. The Canadiens also went 0-for-4 with the man advantage in their season-opening win over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
To enter the offensive zone, the Canadiens are still making drop passes in the neutral zone to gain momentum. But with a 18.4 percent success rate, Alex Burrows and St Louis should draw up some new ideas.
The lack of strategy on the power-play demonstrates questionable decision-making by the coaching staff. I would call it rookie decision-making.
Rookie decision-making might also explain the lack of chemistry between players. Lines and defense pairings were being mixed up throughout the pre-season. Only now that the season has begun has there been any stability. This might explain the Habs broken play from time-to-time.
To develop chemistry, players need to play with regular linemates.
Lack of experience comes with mistakes and rookie decision-making and it definitely won’t help the team getting wins during the regular season.
Time will tell
Having an inexperienced coaching and development staff as well as a rookie general manager will clearly have an impact on the team’s future.
On the coaching level, newcomers like St. Louis and Robidas will bring a lot of passion to the team. However, their lack of experience might lead to broken play on the ice and questionable decision-making.
With the regular season having just got underway, there’s still a lot to see from the Canadiens’ new organization and staff. There will be ups and downs, but there is hope that St. Louis and the other team members will lead the Habs to be a Stanley Cup favorite in a couple of years.
By Gustave Pinault-Masson, Staff Writer
All Habs Hockey Magazine
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