Moments after pounding his chest in front of all of his players in the locker room following the Montreal Canadiens’ triumphant Game 7 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Martin St-Louis said something that perfectly explains the reasoning behind his unique coaching philosophy.
"I feel like you can’t take the player out of me a little bit, right?" St-Louis said. "I don’t try to be in the locker room a lot. To me, this is their space, their team. It’s not my team. I try to steer them, but every now and then, I have moments with them. I try to pick my spot. On a night like tonight, I wanted to be with them, and we had some fun."
As a player, St-Louis recorded over 1,000 points over his 16-year NHL career, won a Stanley Cup, was awarded a Hart Trophy and two Art Ross Trophies, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2018.
Whether he’s in skates or behind the bench wearing a suit, St-Louis attacks the game the same way.
Using the attributes that made him successful as an undersized player at 5-foot-8, including his high hockey IQ and fiery energy, St-Louis has seamlessly transitioned into an NHL head-coaching career.
It’s his experience playing in the NHL that allows him to relate to this Canadiens young core, who have rallied around their head coach to reach the second round of the playoffs.
Martin St-Louis and Jakub Dobes (Morgan Tencza-Imagn Images)
"I think I'll always be empathetic, but I feel like I'm not letting my empathetic mindset stopping me from coaching," St-Louis said at Sunday morning's skate ahead of Game 3 against the Buffalo Sabres.
"You can still coach and be empathetic. It's probably how you deliver it. I'm not afraid to wear my heart on my sleeve, not afraid to tell the truth, but there's always an empathetic angle that I have also because I've felt what they felt, I've made the same mistakes, I've cost the team, I've made big plays.
"I think my players know that I’ve lived all that. I feel like when we have these moments of truth that it affects anybody. It comes from a place of 'I've been there before, and here's how I can help you.' I don't think I'll ever take my empathetic angle out just because they gave me more. The mind is still important, so I try to make sure that I have them in the right place," he said.
One of VP of hockey operations Jeff Gorton and GM Kent Hughes’ first moves upon being hired by the Canadiens during the 2021-22 season was to bring on St-Louis as the interim head coach, replacing Dominique Ducharme.
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It was a decision that would ultimately set the foundation of the Canadiens’ rebuild.
However, it was also a decision at the time viewed as risky and unorthodox, given that St-Louis had no prior NHL head-coaching experience, previously coaching his son’s team at the peewee level.
Gorton’s relationship with St-Louis, built during their time spent with the New York Rangers together, and Hughes’ relationship with St-Louis, which stemmed around their son’s peewee hockey careers, allowed the Canadiens’ president of hockey operations and GM to properly assess if the Laval native was fit for a role behind an NHL bench.
The Canadiens, sitting in last place in the entire league with an 8-30-7 record on Feb. 8, 2022, were looking for a long-term solution behind the bench and a coach who could grow alongside a young team.
Gorton and Hughes’ search brought them to St-Louis.
"I admired Marty because of his hockey intellect, but also his personality," Hughes said on The Sick Podcast. "If we were Vegas and they felt like they needed to make the coaching change that they made, Marty would not have been the hire. If we were the Islanders making the change at the end of the year, Marty would not have been the hire. He had the potential to be really, really good and we had the opportunity to allow him to learn and develop because we believe the potential were better than the alternatives were."
Fast-forward four years, and the Canadiens are far from the team that St-Louis originally inherited in 2022.
Under St-Louis, the Habs have improved every season, going from 55 points to 68 to 76 to 91 to this past season, 106.
All the while, he’s been influential in the development and growth of the Canadiens’ young core.
This past regular season, Nick Suzuki led the team with 101 points, becoming the fifth player in franchise history to record over 100 points.
Cole Caufield reached the 50-goal plateau, the first Canadiens player to achieve this milestone since Stephane Richer in 1990. Also, Lane Hutson recorded 78 points in just his second season, and Juraj Slafkovsky is coming off a career-high 73 points.
St-Louis is also teaching the Canadiens to win in different ways, becoming a more well-rounded team in the process.
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To start off the 2025-26 campaign, the Habs used their speed and offensive firepower to rattle off victories in high-scoring affairs, but toward the end of the season, they found ways to win in low-scoring games, with their tightened-up and structured defense shining at the forefront.
"I think we started a lot last year understanding that defensive hockey is a big part of a winning recipe," St-Louis said. "You need to score goals, but I feel we've progressed and progressed and progressed throughout the last two seasons. And obviously, I don't feel our offensive game hurts, because we're getting better defensively. I feel like we're learning to manage games better. When it's time to defend, we can defend.
"Usually, young teams are not known to really like defending. Talk about maturity, and (I) said maturity has no age. I feel like we've matured a lot in that department. We haven't used 'oh, we're young. We shouldn't value that as much.' I feel like it's a big part of our maturity in our process and why we're able to compete against anybody."
Going up against an experienced Lightning team in the first round, the Canadiens displayed their maturity, winning a hard-fought seven-game series.
St-Louis also showed his progression as a coach. Matched up against Jon Cooper, a two-time Stanley Cup-winning coach. St-Louis was able to make the necessary adjustments over the course of the series, while further molding the Canadiens into playing a stingy defensive game that allowed them to overcome their Atlantic Division foe.
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St-Louis’ ability to adapt has transitioned into the second round. The Canadiens followed up an overwhelming 4-2 loss to the Sabres in Game 1 with a dominant 5-1 victory in Game 2.
The Canadiens have not lost consecutive games through these playoffs, which speaks to St-Louis’ aptitude to make necessary adjustments after any given game.
As a player, St-Louis played in 107 playoff games, so he understands the pressure and magnitude of the post-season. With that knowledge, he’s been able to effectively motivate his team, and he always says the right thing at the right time.
"Marty had an unbelievable speech before the game today," Habs goaltender Jakub Dobes told Sportsnet's Kyle Bukauskas after Game 2 against the Sabres. "I will probably remember it maybe for the rest of my career."
The player is and always will be inside of St-Louis. That will never change.
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