Martin St. Louis Named Interim Head Coach

In a shocking turn of events, a few hours after firing Dominique Ducharme, the Montreal Canadiens have hired Hall of Famer Martin St. Louis as the interim head coach.

You read that correctly – Martin St. Louis is your new head coach. At least for this season. We’ll see after.

Kent Hughes released a statement via nhl.com

“We are very happy to welcome Martin to the Canadiens organization,” said Hughes. “Not only are we adding an excellent hockey man, but with Martin we are bringing in a proven winner and a man whose competitive qualities are recognized by all who have crossed his path.”

As a player, Martin St. Louis played 16 seasons with the Calgary Flames, Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers. The Laval, Quebec native amassed 1033 points in 1134 games and won the Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay in 2004. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018.

It’s worth noting that Jeff Gorton and St. Louis worked together in New York and his agent at the time was Kent Hughes. As Alexandre Pratt from La Presse noted,  he was also special assistant to John Tortorella in Columbus. His son Riley is teammates with the Hughes boys in Northeastern. He was also a pee-wee coach at Mid-Fairfield a team that Jeff Gorton Jr. played for.

The team announced that St. Louis and the upper brass will give a press conference on Thursday at 11:30am ET. He is scheduled to be in place for tomorrow’s matchup against the Washington Capitals.