Montreal Canadiens: Grading Martin St. Louis a Year Later
By Ryan Praught
Last month, I wrote about the job Kent Hughes has done as the Canadiens’ General Manager after one year on the job. Believe it or not, it’s now also been a year for Martin St. Louis as head coach of the Canadiens. At the time he was hired, St. Louis was just the interim head coach, but after coaching the final 37 games of the 2021-22 season, St. Louis parlayed that into a three-year contract extension and the removal of the interim tag.
While it hasn’t been a linear path, most would say that Martin St. Louis has done an excellent job behind the bench, especially when one considers the adversity that’s been dealt. Nobody in the NHL has suffered more from injuries over the last two seasons, with the previous season, in particular, holding the dubious record of the most man games lost to injuries in NHL history.
This is from March 19th, the Habs had 603 man-games lost, they've had ~9 players on IR since. The all-time record was 629, set by the '03 Kings.
— /r/Habs (@HabsOnReddit) April 1, 2022
Since then, the Habs have accrued over 650 man-games lost, making the 2021-22 Montreal Canadiens the most injured team in NHL history. https://t.co/wV2EDLA9tI
With that in mind, let’s take a look back at the job St. Louis has done over the last year as the head coach. To do this, we will look at a few things, first by comparing him to the previous man in charge, Dom Ducharme. Then we will look at how he stacks up against the rest of the NHL, and finally, how he has impacted individual players and their development.