Quinn on Jacques Martin: 'He Checks All the Boxes'

The moment Jacques Martin became available as an assistant coach in mid-July, Rangers Head Coach David Quinn had one singular thought.
"The minute that that happened," Quinn said, "in my head, I thought, well, I need to talk to this guy."
When former Rangers assistant Lindy Ruff was named head coach of the Devils in early July, Quinn and the Rangers brass knew they had a hole to fill. In Quinn's eyes, Martin fit the bill completely.
"When we talked as a staff when Lindy left about what we were looking for in order to replace him, we thought about the fact that we'd like to get somebody with a similar pedigree, and Jacques has that," Quinn said. "He checked a lot of boxes we were looking for."
On Monday, the Rangers officially announced that Martin will join Quinn's staff, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Rangers bench.
Martin, who spent the last seven years with Pittsburgh, arrives in New York with a resume that includes three decades of NHL coaching and front office experience. He served as a head coach for 17 seasons, winning the Jack Adams Award in 1999, and he served as General Manager of the Florida Panthers for three seasons from 2006-09. He also helped the Penguins win back-to-back Stanley Cups as an assistant on Mike Sullivan's staff in 2016 and 2017.

"Jacques checked all the boxes that we were looking for as an organization to add to our staff, with all the head coaching experiences, all the success he's had - we certainly felt like our organization would benefit from looking into hiring him," Quinn said. "Any time you're looking to hire someone that you don't know, there's got to be a comfort level, and the more Jacques and I talked, the more comfortable we got, professionally and personally."
That breadth of experience is exactly what Quinn was hoping to replace when Ruff took the job across the Hudson. Fortunately for Quinn, he had a direct line to Sullivan - his former teammate at Boston University - who offered a glowing recommendation for Martin.
"Obviously, I'm lucky because of my relationship with Mike Sullivan to really get a feel for what Jacques was all about," Quinn said. "Mike and I have a similar approach to how the game is going to be played. I trust Sully a lot, but I had to make my own decision, and the times that Jacques and I talked on the phone and the Zoom calls we had, it was just really so right."
During the interview process, Martin - who will run the Rangers' defense and penalty kill - was both intrigued and excited by the Rangers' youth and skill. To him, it's reminiscent of the situation he stepped into in Ottawa back in 1996.
"That was a young team with a lot of young talent," he said. "It was looking for a coaching staff that would provide direction, would provide support, would provide guidance, would provide you with answers and put in place a system. For Coach Quinn, this year was really his first year with so many young guys, but to be able to continue that process - I'm excited.
"When you look at the direction of of the National Hockey League, it's obvious that a lot of teams are getting younger, a lot of teams are getting faster. I think we fit right into that new trend, and I think it's our responsibility as a coaching staff to bring as much information as possible to the players, bring a structure and a system that's going to bring us some success and make sure that we play with the details that are necessary to win hockey games."
Teaching, Martin said, is his bread and butter.
"Having the opportunity to work with those young guys on a daily basis, whether it's on the ice or off the ice, doing some video, preparing them for for every game - it's a challenge that I'm looking forward to," he said. "My background is in teaching. I love to be able to teach the players. At the same time, part of it is to recognize what their strengths are and identify what areas they need to improve and make sure that they play within their strengths and keep working on the areas that they need to be better - working on their confidence or working on their technical skills as defensemen."
The many years Martin spent as a head coach are also bound to prove beneficial as he builds a rapport with Quinn. He's been in Quinn's shoes. He knows precisely what his role is, not just in relation to the players but in relation to Quinn and his fellow assistants.
"There's so many things that you have to deal with as a head coach," Martin said. "You need people that are going to be responsible in certain areas, but a lot of decisions are made as a group. I welcome being part of a team, and as I said to David, I think the fact that I've been a head coach - I understand the role of the assistant coach. Your role is to give your opinion, what you're taught, what you believe in, and sometimes it's going to be accepted, sometimes it's not. That is my responsibility: to give him the best information, the best knowledge I have, and then it's up to him to take it and make his decision."
Every coach and every assistant on staff, Martin said, is responsible for bringing a different dimension to the table. Staffs succeed when there is variety - of background, of opinion, of experience.
Coaching staffs also succeed when there's some familiarity in the mix. David Oliver, who has been a part of Quinn's staff from the beginning, has that with Martin, having played for him when he was head coach of the Senators.
"David Oliver raved about him, as a person and a coach," Quinn said. "One of the things that we feel as a staff is we've got an awful lot of respect for each other professionally, and we get along so well personally. It just seemed like knowing Ollie and Brownie the way I do, and getting to know Jacques a little bit and also knowing a lot of people that know him, he just seemed like a natural fit, professionally and personally."
Next up for Quinn and his staff is focusing on the 2020-21 season - and though there are still some question marks with regards to what exactly that will look like, there's no doubt that, with the pieces officially solidified, there is plenty of the excitement to get started.
"[Hiring Martin] was important because of not only where we're at, but where we want to go," Quinn said. "We anticipate playing playoff games and playoff series and battling for the Stanley Cup, and it's nice to have someone on your staff who has had the success he's had and has gone through it.
"Any time you make a hire, where you're at as an organization has a lot to do with it. Where we're at, where we're going and the strides we've made and the strides we want to make, we think Jacques can help us reach our ultimate goal."