Todd: Martin St. Louis's masterful touch has Canadiens soaring

The best Canadiens coach since Scotty Bowman has a salt-and-pepper beard now, replacing the Movember Moustache that drew bad reviews from the folks in the cheap seats.

Where other coaches look angry or tense or in need of a nice padded room, Martin St. Louis looks thoughtful and a little worried. But make no mistake: the fire burns as bright as ever.

In his playing days, I had a couple of brief encounters with St. Louis, enough to realize that I had seen those eyes before — on a chap named Maurice Richard. The coach may seem cool and calm, but (as with the Rocket) the eyes tell a different story, the story of a fiery competitor in exactly the right job.

When this season is over, the National Hockey League should do the right thing. Not merely awarding the Jack Adams Trophy to St. Louis but having it cast in solid gold and handing it to the Hall of Famer in perpetuity.

Not since William Scott Bowman was keeping such luminaries as Larry Robinson, Serge Savard and Ken Dryden perpetually off-balance (the better to manipulate them) have we seen such coaching. The man whose career resumé boiled down to a kid’s team in New England is now a full-fledged NHL coach and he is reinventing the job on the fly.

You scream? St. Louis talks. You rant? St. Louis listens. You have no time for rookies? St. Louis has two — two — solid candidates for the Calder Trophy less than a year after Lane Hutson became the first Canadien to win it since Dryden.

Jacques Lemaire was such a great coach that for a time, the entire league altered the way it played the game in imitation of his success. But in Montreal, Lemaire’s singular feat was to drive Guy Lafleur out of town.

What would St. Louis have done? He would have helped the Flower to alter his game in subtle ways to remain on the top line while becoming more defensively responsible. Rookie or veteran, high-flying draft choice or fourth-liner, he will work with you, not against you.

At last, he’s getting the results — enough, perhaps, to silence some of the silliest critics any coach has been forced to endure, even in Montreal. As recently as mid-December, one of the genius bloggers writing about the Canadiens said this: “The average shelf life for a coach is not long these days; with St. Louis passing the four-year mark, it is fair to wonder if he could be in trouble should the season continue to spiral.”

Actually, it’s not fair at all. Or insightful. As any observer ought to be able to work out, St. Louis is a brilliant coach coaxing an extremely young team along while dealing with a rash of injuries (still six regulars out of the lineup at last count) and having suffered through a prolonged stretch when his two top goalies couldn’t stop a beach ball.

Trust me: Never, not at any point, was there a microscopic chance that Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes were going to send St. Louis packing. They are brilliant managers, as good at their jobs as St. Louis is at his, and they know what they have, because St. Louis was a hire for the ages.

Coming off a solid road trip, the back-to-back wins over the Calgary Flames and the Florida Panthers were a throwback to Bowman’s teams of the 1970s. When called upon, Lafleur & Co. could produce routine, workmanlike wins. Not spectacular, perhaps, but predictable — another two points in the bank.

Alexandre Texier had a hat trick, Cole Caufield had perhaps the most brilliant shot of his career, Juraj Slafkovsky kept churning out points, Lane Hutson solidified his position as one of the best defencemen in the league whether Bill Guerin and Team USA can recognize that fact or not — and after a three-point night against Florida, Oliver Kapanen led all rookie scorers with 15 goals on the season, one ahead of Anaheim Hall of Namer Beckett Sennecke.

As of this writing, Kapanen is fourth in rookie scoring with 26 points, while linemate Ivan Demidov is the rookie leader with 36 points. Kapanen, for all those clamouring for a veteran second-line centre, also kills penalties. He’s a smart, heady player and an opportunistic scorer, and the coach who has brought him along, with Demidov and first-overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky, is St. Louis.

When the team was struggling in December, St. Louis got the help he needed from the organization. A couple of strong outings from rookie Jacob Fowler solidified the goaltending and Hughes reached out for former Canadien centreman Phillip Danault.

Danault has not only fit seamlessly into his old team, but he has firmed up both the team defence and the penalty kill. The Canadiens look “connected” defensively and they are the most exciting edition of the Habs in decades, high-scoring and entertaining.

Oh, and as of this writing, they are also tied for first place in the Atlantic Division with 56 points and a 25-13-6 record.

Dick Irvin Sr., Toe Blake, Bowman, St. Louis. It took a while, but the torch has been passed.

jacktodd46@yahoo.com

jacktodd.bsky.social