One of the core tenets of any championship-caliber team is accountability. Not just the top-down kind, where team members are berated by poor managers for not hitting baseless quotas or for needing to miss a day to go to a doctor's appointment. Since taking over as permanent head coach of the Montreal Canadiens in 2022, Martin St. Louis has made capital-A Accountability one of the team's core pillars.
Despite having no professional head coaching experience before landing in Montreal, St. Louis has been able to earn the respect of his peers and players due to how he approaches difficult situations. He doesn't shrink from the questions that have some sandpaper to them. A Winning Habit's own Brandon Croce recently gave St. Louis his flowers for never ducking the sinewy inquiries.
Croce was bang on when he wrote that the bench boss's willingness to engage on tough topics "shows a level of accountability, especially in the moment, that isn't always found from coaches in not just hockey but professional sports." Which is what made his response to a difficult question following the Canadiens' overtime loss in Game 2 so disappointing.
Martin St. Louis missed an opportunity to hold himself and his staff accountable following Game 2 loss
During the press conference following Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Final, St. Louis was asked by Guillaume Lefrançois of La Presse--a highly respected Canadiens reporter with more than a decade and a half on the beat--about his line deployment during overtime.
Lefrançois asked St. Louis if he was rolling all four lines in anticipation of a lengthy overtime. To which St. Louis responded, "I don’t know, but why are you asking me that?" Things went a bit sideways from there, with the reporter pointing out that the Canadiens had their fourth line out on the ice when the Carolina Hurricanes scored the game-winner.
Instead of explaining his rationale or taking ownership of the clear mistake, St. Louis simply confirmed that his fourth line was, indeed, out on the ice for Nikolaj Ehlers' Game 2 clincher, before standing up and walking away.
That isn't what accountability looks like. St. Louis had visible disdain on his face as he walked off the stage, as if he couldn't believe that his tactics were being questioned. When in reality, the inquiry was totally fair because it's the third time in these playoffs that Montreal's fourth line has been scored on in overtime.
Zack Bolduc, Oliver Kapanen, and Kirby Dach were on the ice when Ehlers scored in Game 2. Buldoc and Dach--along with Alexandre Texier--allowed a goal to Gage Goncalves in Game 6 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Buldoc, Kapanen, and Dach trio also were on when the Lightning scored the overtime winner in Game 2. So it's fair to question why that line was out against the red-hot Ehlers just 3:29 into the extra frame in a winnable contest.
Letting emotions take the wheel now won't serve St. Louis or the Canadiens well
St. Louis had an emotional response to a tough but fair question just a few minutes after dropping an overtime game. That is understandable. The goal itself may be remembered as a turning point in the Eastern Conference Final, but it isn't like the bench boss flipped a table and went full-on early John Tortorella on Lefrançois.
The reality, though, is that the clip was likely shown to every member of the Hurricanes, as St. Louis' frustration was a crack in what has been otherwise impenetrable armor. St. Louis could have stood his ground, answered the question with honesty--like usual--and then went about preparing for Game 3.
Instead, he took the low road, and in doing so, gave away some of the Canadiens' mystique as a young team that has remained unflappable in the face of adversity. St. Louis walking out of the press conference the way he did was bulletin board material for a Hurricanes team that didn't really need it, and that lack of accountability couldn't have come at a worse time for the head coach or the Canadiens.
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