On the night that the Tampa Bay Lightning retired his number, Martin St. Louis had some advice for young hockey players around the World: "Have a dream, go after it, and when it gets hard, don't quit too soon. Believe in yourself, and everything is possible." Feeling a bit less inspirational that night, John Tortorella lovingly quipped that "Marty was a pain in the a** to coach... He was stubborn. He was convicted."
In a nutshell, those two quotes define the kind of player that St. Louis was on the ice, and it's indicative of the identity that he's given the Montreal Canadiens as their head coach. This version of the Habs never quits when it gets hard. They always seem to believe that they will win the next shift, the next game, the next series. And they have a stubbornness about them that makes the group incredibly difficult to extinguish.
Case in point: Game 2 against the Buffalo Sabres on Friday night. It wasn't exactly a must-win contest, but the Canadiens did not want to go back to Montreal trailing Buffalo 0-2. Every team would say that, of course. But not every squad can find a way to deliver as the Habs did in Buffalo.
With their backs up against the wall, St. Louis had his guys playing hard and fast. Buffalo tried to back them down with physical play--some home cooking led to the Sabres being credited with more than 40 hits--but that didn't work for the Lightning in the first round. And, once again, the smaller, faster Canadiens pushed back where it mattered: on the scoreboard.
Canadiens embody everything Martin St. Louis represented as a player
In a copycat league that has seen seemingly every team try to mimic the rough and tumble Florida Panthers, the Canadiens have taken a decidely different approach to team building. Cole Caufield is listed at 5-foot-8. Nick Suzuki is given 5-foot-10. There are a few buzzsaws on the roster (we're looking at you, Josh Anderson), but this isn't a team that tries to out-hit their opposition.
They use slick, smart decision-making in the offensive zone to make overaggressive defenders pay. For a perfect example, just watch Montreal's opening goal of Game 2. Tage Thompson decided to play the body instead of the puck in an early offensive zone entry as Buffalo tried to set the tone. Lane Hutson--all 162 pounds of him--managed to push the puck up the ice to clear the zone while lying flat on the ice.
After regaining control on offense, Jake Evans took a hit to make a play back to Hutson, who was bowled over again. By this point, Sabres fans were on their feet as Buffalo had clearly come to play some backyard hockey. Except the puck made its way over to Kaiden Guhle, who snapped a shot on net, which was redirected in by Alex Newhook. The Sabres may have landed three big hits, but the Canadiens finished where it mattered.
It was easy to see what the Sabres' game plan was in Game 2. The edict was to run the Canadiens through the boards and back to Montreal for Game 3. Maybe that would have worked against a different team with a different coach. Not these Canadiens, though. They bottled the energy of that early first goal en route to a 5-1 statement win against Buffalo, and head coach Lindy Ruff is going to have to come up with a better game plan as the series shifts to Canada.
It's not a series until a road team wins. Well, this is now officially a series, and the Canadiens are starting to look and feel like they have the kind of It Factor needed to go on a legitimate run in the playoffs. The Sabres aren't going to go quietly, but as Game 2 indicated, they are going to have to do more than throw the body around to slow down the Canadiens, who have taken what St. Louis was a player and turned it into a team identity.
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