St. Louis equipped to succeed as Canadiens coach, those who know him say
Hall of Fame forward brings 'a will, a mindset, a mental toughness' to new post
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Hedman quickly learned St. Louis was also a bit of an on-ice and in-the-room player-coach, particularly in how he welcomed and worked with younger players like the Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman, then an 18-year-old breaking into the best league in the world.
"It was eye-opening," Hedman said Thursday, two hours after St. Louis was introduced as coach of the Montreal Canadiens. "Marty is a perfectionist. He's a teacher of the game as well. He always told me he was hard on me because he believed in me. I don't know if he's going to bring that into coaching but that's how he is as a guy. He was always trying to teach me. He had a tremendous influence on me and my career."
Hedman, now 31, has turned into a Norris Trophy winner and two-time Stanley Cup champion.
St. Louis, nearly seven years after retiring as a player and with no professional coaching experience, will now try to do with the Canadiens what he did with Hedman, Lightning captain Steven Stamkos and many others: Motivate and inspire them to make them believe they can, and will, become a better team.
"I think it's one of my strong suits," St. Louis said.
Former teammates and coaches who were around St. Louis long enough during his 16-year NHL playing career that featured 1,033 points (391 goals, 642 assists) in 1,134 games attest to his ability to become a successful NHL coach because of the attributes that carried him to a Hockey Hall of Fame career, despite being 5-foot-8.
"The most important thing Marty can bring to that organization is he has a will, a mindset, a mental toughness that not many athletes have and I do think that is a huge part of winning in the National Hockey League," said John Tortorella, who coached St. Louis with the Lightning from 2001-08. "That's going to show through right away with these guys. I think that's a very important part of building a culture, a standard. I think he's going to be so strong in developing that type of mental attitude with his team."
The Canadiens need it. Following a 5-2 loss to the Capitals in St. Louis' first game on Thursday, they are 8-31-7, on pace for the worst season in their 105-year history. They were outscored 33-12 in five straight losses before St. Louis was brought in to take over for coach Dominque Ducharme, who was fired Wednesday.
"I'm sure just him stepping into the room, the road he took and what he's become, I think he gets immediate credibility when he says, 'You're going to work here,' " Tortorella said. "No one prepared harder for a camp than Marty did. No one prepared himself in practice the way Marty did. As I've said many times, he was a pain because he wanted more. He wanted to be better. He wanted me to be better as a coach. He wanted Vinny [Lecavalier] to be better. He didn't care if you got mad at him or not, he was going to try to make himself and everyone around him better. The work habits, that's going to be an immediate thing that he's going to demand."
Tortorella said the X's and O's of the game will come after St. Louis gets to know his players, their tendencies, what makes them tick, how much they can handle and when he might have to pull back.
"Those are the things he's going to have to go through, but that's the coolest part about coaching, coaching the mind," Tortorella said.
Until St. Louis figures that part out, it's unfair to judge him on wins and losses, said former NHL defenseman Dan Boyle, a teammate in Tampa Bay (2001-08) and with the New York Rangers (2014-15).
"What I didn't like, especially at the end of my career, was the robot vision of certain coaches and how they think that that's the way the game is played," Boyle said. "Well, Marty knows how the game is played, how it should be played, how it's fluid and how you need to make changes.
"I think the players are going to love him. They're obviously going to respect him. They just have to. But most importantly, he has the brain for the game. He can be fluid and understand what to do with his team. He's going to learn on the job and he's going to figure it out."
The belief in St. Louis is strong because he has been training for this opportunity for years; as a player helping coaches adjust by offering opinions and asking questions, as a hockey dad working with his three sons and their teams, and as a fan.
"The few times Marty came back to Tampa Bay," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said, "he was always in the coach's room and he wanted to talk hockey, talk face-offs, which I have to remind him he can't use any of that stuff against us. I don't think of any of the former players, unless they've gone into broadcasting, have shown that want to come in and talk with us about coaching. Marty did that. And he's done that over the years."
Former NHL forward Brad Richards said he remembers St. Louis breaking down video with teammates on the plane, asking questions and figuring out solutions, when they played together in Tampa Bay from 2001-08 and then again briefly with the Rangers in 2013-14.
"He has the great hockey mind but then he has the great determination and discipline to work at it, to keep exploring new ways to do things, new ideas," Richards said. "That's where his mind is set apart. Some people shut it off and go home, forget about it. Marty isn't like that. He's always on."
