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Habs hire Martin St-Louis as their 28th Head Coach


alfredoh2009

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3 hours ago, tomh009 said:

So, when does Julien's contract expire? Ducharme is still getting paid for next season, as I recall.

 

I think Julien's is up at the end of this season (NHL calendar year).  Ducharme has two years left.

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2 hours ago, dlbalr said:

 

I think Julien's is up at the end of this season (NHL calendar year).  Ducharme has two years left.

Weren’t we also still paying Therrien last year. Julien-Therrien-Duacharme last year and Julien-Duscharme-St. Louis this year, as well as next year. 

Molson can’t be too happy paying three coaches for multiple years. 

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19 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

Molson can’t be too happy paying three coaches for multiple years. 

 Assume he rubber-stamped all the hirings, dosent affect the cap, so meh.  Paying Weber/Price/Alzner for sitting home likely stings a bit more.

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5 hours ago, hab29RETIRED said:

Weren’t we also still paying Therrien last year. Julien-Therrien-Duacharme last year and Julien-Duscharme-St. Louis this year, as well as next year. 

Molson can’t be too happy paying three coaches for multiple years. 

 

Therrien's was up after the 2017-18 season.

 

https://www.capfriendly.com/staff/michel-therrien

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14 hours ago, DON said:

 

 

Byron’s main comparator is with other star players who tried coaching. It’s a notorious rarity for great players to become great coaches.

 

I don’t know if MSL is a ‘great coach,’ but he certainly comes off as a player’s coach and the right guy to develop players, especially in Montreal. 

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I think he provide some positivity next season if they plan to tank. He proved he can do that, and I expect him to be able to do it next season too.

 

The two last years of his contract will be more telling on the type of coach he will be and how that fits with the path the Habs will need to take until they become cup contenders.

 

It is good news for the team

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5 minutes ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

The plan isn't to "tank", the plan is develop young players and rebuild something that needs to be fixed. There is no overnight fix here. 

I think this is right. They are likely not expecting to be in the playoffs next season, but I don't think they are intentionally targeting finishing at the bottom of the standings again.

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TSN690 posed a "question of the day" on their 10-noon show of whether the habs should add a veteran coach to the staff.

 

As I've read elsewhere, I think it is a good idea to add a veteran coach to the organization, as a resource for MSL and even JF Houle (maybe even Burrows regarding the PP, although a true QB would be much more useful) ... avoiding the full-time coaching role might expand the number, and quality, of candidates interested.

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46 minutes ago, tomh009 said:

I think this is right. They are likely not expecting to be in the playoffs next season, but I don't think they are intentionally targeting finishing at the bottom of the standings again.

 

I don't think they are targeting that either either but it could happen. The Habs will likely be a bottom 10 team next year but it can be hard to predict from year to year. Price gets healthy, some of the young kids develop quicker than planned and they might surprise. I wouldn't bet on that happening but you never know. 

 

Now what would be really nice is for Florida to have an unexpected bad year next year. 

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if the Habs do not pick top-3 next year, it will be a missed opportunity to rebuild.

 

The Habs are missing elite talent, and with their cap situation there is no way that they can hitch their cup Stanley hopes on Suzuki, Caufield, Guhle and Primeau

 

I am baffled by the prospect of expecting a powerhouse team after only one year in the bottom-3 of the league

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3 hours ago, tomh009 said:

I think this is right. They are likely not expecting to be in the playoffs next season, but I don't think they are intentionally targeting finishing at the bottom of the standings again.

Yeah. I can’t see us holding people down in the minors the way the Leafs did to draft Matthews. I think we will probably move more veterans, becuase it will make sense. But given who we have and the holes we have, we will be bad - should not be historically bad. But are probably a bottom 10 team.

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20 hours ago, dlbalr said:

 

Therrien's was up after the 2017-18 season.

 

https://www.capfriendly.com/staff/michel-therrien

Didn’t realize he was off the payroll that long ago. I had thought he had just signed a long term extension before getting fired.

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1 hour ago, alfredoh2009 said:

if the Habs do not pick top-3 next year, it will be a missed opportunity to rebuild.

 

The Habs are missing elite talent, and with their cap situation there is no way that they can hitch their cup Stanley hopes on Suzuki, Caufield, Guhle and Primeau

I don't think many people are counting on Primeau. However, I expect that Wright should be on your list. Possibly Mailloux, too (though much risk still attached to him).

 

That said, I really don't see an intentional tank next year -- there wasn't even one this year (OK, giving Armia the last few weeks off to stay with his family was probably intentional). My guess for the team is somewhere in the 20th-30th range,  but much depends on the goaltending situation, and that will likely not be clear until sometime in the fall.

 

As for the cap situation, in St Louis's third year, we will have, if no one is traded:

  • Weber, Price likely on LTIR
  • Suzuki, Evans ($9.5M)
  • Gallagher, Dvorak, Armia ($14.5M)
  • Caufield (TBD)
  • Petry, Savard ($9.8M)

Petry will surely be gone, and then the rest is quite manageable; only Suzuki, Anderson and Gallagher have contracts beyond that season (apart from Price and Weber).

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2 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

... I am baffled by the prospect of expecting a powerhouse team after only one year in the bottom-3 of the league

 

1 hour ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

Who on this forum is expecting them to be a powerhouse team next year?

 

I am 99.9% certain he was not referring to next season ... rather, to the expectation that the rebuild will lead to a powerhouse, or at least a consistent playoff team and Cup contender ... no more "wild card" and see what happens.

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2 hours ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

 

Who on this forum is expecting them to be a powerhouse team next year?

Don’t be facetious , not next years

 

In 3-4 years after the rebuild 

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15 hours ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

 

Who on this forum is expecting them to be a powerhouse team next year?

Not St.Louis's mandate anyways;

https://theathletic.com/3344974/2022/06/01/martin-st-louis-canadiens-compete/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983

Basu The Athletic:

" “I mean, I think I’ll always have that pressure, my own internal pressure,” St. Louis said. “I don’t like to lose, but do I want to win in a short-term mindset, so to speak, at the price of not developing the young guys that are going to help you win for years? No, I don’t want to risk that. So I want to have the young guys, the prospects, the players that are here now, reach their full potential, and sometimes you’ve got to put those guys on the ice and make them feel confident on the ice. And short-term, does that not help you win as many games? I don’t know. But I’m not going to go in the season and just think about I have to win every game at the price of not developing the young guys. I’m not doing that".

 

Sounds good to me and not much choice i dont think.

 

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24 minutes ago, DON said:

Not St.Louis's mandate anyways;

https://theathletic.com/3344974/2022/06/01/martin-st-louis-canadiens-compete/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983

Basu The Athletic:

" “I mean, I think I’ll always have that pressure, my own internal pressure,” St. Louis said. “I don’t like to lose, but do I want to win in a short-term mindset, so to speak, at the price of not developing the young guys that are going to help you win for years? No, I don’t want to risk that. So I want to have the young guys, the prospects, the players that are here now, reach their full potential, and sometimes you’ve got to put those guys on the ice and make them feel confident on the ice. And short-term, does that not help you win as many games? I don’t know. But I’m not going to go in the season and just think about I have to win every game at the price of not developing the young guys. I’m not doing that".

 

Sounds good to me and not much choice i dont think.

 

 

Looking back I think DD felt more short term pressure to win because they made the final the year before and developing the young guys was a secondary consideration which ultimately led to his downfall. I think St. Louis is in a much better position to succeed as the expectations are a little different.  The pressure on St. Louis will be to develop the young guys properly which I believe is something he can succeed at.  Team success will follow at some point down the road. 

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18 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

if the Habs do not pick top-3 next year, it will be a missed opportunity to rebuild.

 

The Habs are missing elite talent, and with their cap situation there is no way that they can hitch their cup Stanley hopes on Suzuki, Caufield, Guhle and Primeau

 

I am baffled by the prospect of expecting a powerhouse team after only one year in the bottom-3 of the league

 

What you do is, you have league-leading drafting and development, resulting in elite talent entering the organization from outside the top-3 of the draft. It’s what Tampa and Boston have done, for example. Caufield himself was what, #15? If that kid had been picked at #3, he would be used as proof that you have to tank to get elite talent. 

 

I have no problem “tanking” if by this we mean selling off veterans in a year when we’re clearly not a playoff team. But the idea that a team would go into the season fully intending to ice the worst possible club is repugnant to me. I also seriously question whether absolute and deliberate suckage is a healthy developmental environment for kids. Look at what EDM’s disastrous bottom-feeding and loser culture did to a generation of Oilers players. Only now are they coming out of it. 

 

There is no simply substitue for excellence in drafting and development in my book. If you have those, you don’t need to tank. And if we have these, we will become highly competitive in 3-4 years. At that point, if we’re not shaping up to be heavy-duty contenders, management needs to make the right further moves to get us there. 

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28 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

... I have no problem “tanking” if by this we mean selling off veterans in a year when we’re clearly not a playoff team. But the idea that a team would go into the season fully intending to ice the worst possible club is repugnant to me ...

 

I think there is a mid-point (soft-tank?) ... move out as many of the non-long-term and/or bad-contract veterans as possible (hopefully a couple over the summer and/or throughout next season), but replace them with bridge veterans suited to support the development of young players without creating any new "cap roadblocks" for the "emerging from rebuild/tool" years ... not replacing them by career AHLers and/or washed up NHLers ... personally, I have no issue with out-right tanking for next season (we each have our individual opinions) but expect HuGo will go more the soft-tank approach. 

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