Player Discussion MSL finalist for coach of the year!

[RandR]

What an achievement for someone whose previous coaching experience was his son’s peewee team. It was a bold move by Hughes to make him coach and presumably done because he wanted a teacher-type coach whom the young players could learn from while not worrying too much about how many games they win during the first couple years of the rebuild.

St Louis starts by having an immediate effect on Caufield’s young career, and now, lo and behold, his team has become the youngest in league history to make the playoffs and has done so at least one year ahead of schedule in the rebuild.

St Louis makes mistakes and is not (yet) as good a coach in some aspects of the game compared as some of the super-experienced tacticians around the league, but I dare say those coaches would not be as perfectly suited to taking this group of young players to where they got this year. The players love him and to a man bought into his program.

What is also encouraging is that St Louis is obviously learning how to be a winning coach along with how his young players are learning how to be winning players. Each step gets harder, but just like we don’t know what Suzuki’s ceiling is yet, we don’t know what St Louis’ is yet.

It’s unfortunate that so many fans on this board consistently ignore how much good St Louis has done when criticizing basically every coaching decision that they disagree with, calling him stupid, stubborn, etc without knowing what the deciding factors are that go into most of those decisions.

Well, the answer to that is the results of this season plus St Louis being named a finalist in recognition of the terrific job he has done to achieve those results.

I doubt he will win the award, but being named a finalist is well-deserved. Congratulations in particular go to him, Hughes, and the team.

 

[Pickles]

Well deserved. Coached the youngest team ever to make the playoffs. He's done wonders for many of the player's development, which is exactly what this team needs. I'd take him before any of the other coaches we've had over the last 20 years hands down.

 

[Habs]

 

[Kimota]

This post suggests you may not have much experience with team sports.

I mean you have eyes like the rest of us. You saw how disorganized they were. How they were dominated for several games but mounted a comeback. So they succeeded despite of the coach.

 

[OneSharpMarble]

Still not as good as the brain trust of these boards.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

I mean you have eyes like the rest of us. You saw how disorganized they were. How they were dominated for several games but mounted a comeback. So they succeeded despite of the coach.

Despite the coach?

That roster? Whaaat????

We had no decent RDs on the right side until Carrière showed up. And even then we went through the rest of the way with only him and the now retiring David Savard as our only right shot blueliners.

Our 2nd line was non-existent!

And yet we somehow managed to get into the playoffs. But you want to say the roster is what got us in? Wake up and smell what you’re shovelling.

 

[Bouboumaster]

The nomination is well deserved

I think Carbery will win it, but it's cool that what he did was recognised

 

[Miller Time]

I mean you have eyes like the rest of us. You saw how disorganized they were. How they were dominated for several games but mounted a comeback. So they succeeded despite of the coach.

Not what I saw.

And again, if you came away from this season thinking that this roster succeeded "despite of the coach", I think you may have a very poor grasp of the role a coach & coaching staff plays in a team sport, in particular at the high performance level.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Stubborn Marty

 

[JianYang]

Let's not forget many of our own fans would have replaced him this season...

Failing to see how this team has taken a huge step forward under his tutorship is mind-boggling

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Fans have no time for coaches who they have disagreements with.... which is virtually 100% of the coaches.

 

[Habs]

Despite the coach?

That roster? Whaaat????

We had no decent RDs on the right side until Carrière showed up. And even then we went through the rest of the way with only him and the now retiring David Savard as our only right shot blueliners.

Our 2nd line was non-existent!

And yet we somehow managed to get into the playoffs. But you want to say the roster is what got us in? Wake up and smell what you’re shovelling.

You gotta admit without Hutson this team didn’t make the playoffs, that’s how big his impact was. No other player or person was a bigger factor. No Lane, no post season. Incredible the impact of one guy.

It’s cool he made the finalists, but nothing is better than Hutson. Maybe Demidov will be that much of an impact next year

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

You gotta admit without Hutson this team didn’t make the playoffs, that’s how big his impact was. No other player or person was a bigger factor. No Lane, no post season. Incredible the impact of one guy.

It’s cool he made the finalists, but nothing is better than Hutson. Maybe Demidov will be that much of an impact next year

No coach is going to make it with a lineup entirely of scrubs. Of course we needed Hutson, Caufield and Suzuki.

But that doesn't mean this team wasn't full of massive holes. Nobody predicted us to be in the playoffs this year and many publications had us in the bottom five. And that was before we knew Dach was going to be a tire fire.

We overacheived by a lot this year. Especially after that disastrous start.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Stubborn Marty

 

[JianYang]

Should he win, that's almost a guaranteed firing within a couple of seasons or so. (See recent Jack Adams winners.) Which means that either Arniel or Carbery (or both) are going to lose their jobs pretty soon. If you blink, you miss it.

Getting hired as a coach in the nhl is a guaranteed firing. Winning a jack adams is not any different.

I apologize for bringing this up over and over but msl is the 4th most tenured coach in this league, and he only got hired in 2022.

That should tell you that almost all coaches get fired quickly whether they win the jack adams or not.

 

[Miller Time]

You gotta admit without Hutson this team didn’t make the playoffs, that’s how big his impact was. No other player or person was a bigger factor. No Lane, no post season. Incredible the impact of one guy.

It’s cool he made the finalists, but nothing is better than Hutson. Maybe Demidov will be that much of an impact next year

We made the playoffs on the last game of the season, by 1 point.


Without Suzuki.
Without Monty
Without Cole
Without Skaf
Without Laine
Without Matheson
....

Go ahead and try to assign a relative impact to team points & sure, Lane would be one of the highest, but it's a silly and flawed argument to make that he's the only individual variable that led to the playoff berth.

If there is 1 player at the top of the list, it's Suzuki quite easily for me.

And, to ignore the role the coaching staff played in building the culture that quite clearly has allowed for our young core to punch above their weight is pretty clueless.

Bad take.

 

[Habs]

We made the playoffs on the last game of the season, by 1 point.


Without Suzuki.
Without Monty
Without Cole
Without Skaf
Without Laine
Without Matheson
....

Go ahead and try to assign a relative impact to team points & sure, Lane would be one of the highest, but it's a silly and flawed argument to make that he's the only individual variable that led to the playoff berth.

If there is 1 player at the top of the list, it's Suzuki quite easily for me.

And, to ignore the role the coaching staff played in building the culture that quite clearly has allowed for our young core to punch above their weight is pretty clueless.

Bad take.

If we don’t play shitty Chicago and a depleted canes lineup we don’t make the playoffs anyways. Schedule worked out magically.

 

[JianYang]

If we don’t play shitty Chicago and a depleted canes lineup we don’t make the playoffs anyways. Schedule worked out magically.

This team was unpredictable. Back in late December when they started the run, they went though a gauntlet on the road in a very cramped schedule including wins in Tampa, Florida, Vegas, Dallas and Washington, etc...

But then they win 1 game out of 10 before the 4 nations and looked dead again.

Then after 4 nations, they woke up from the dead and turned then bell center into a fortress with a 10-0-2 record to finish the season.

My point is you just never knew what to expect. They swept Florida but they also got swept by Chicago. That encapsulates this season perfectly.

 

[JadedRandom]

Getting recognition like this is actually not a good thing for MSL.

I like a lot of what MSL's done for the Canadiens in the last four years, but he's still a newbie coach in my eyes and needs to earn his chops in the NHL still, not start getting his ego validated.

MSL's ability to coach a team tactically in the playoffs remains below-average for the NHL in my mind, and he is also FAR from a good game-manager for the Canadiens.

If he gets better in those critical areas I'll stop yapping and give MSL his due, but until then I'll be amongst his doubters.

 

[Miller Time]

If we don’t play shitty Chicago and a depleted canes lineup we don’t make the playoffs anyways. Schedule worked out magically.

Oh come on... There's back takes and then there's this.

I know you like playing the heel but even Vince McMahon couldn't buy this nonsense

 

[Kimota]

Not what I saw.

And again, if you came away from this season thinking that this roster succeeded "despite of the coach", I think you may have a very poor grasp of the role a coach & coaching staff plays in a team sport, in particular at the high performance level.

Well I did say in my post that they didn't have the greatest roster. But at the same time the coaching didn't help them much either. I have seen coaches working in the limits of his teams and overachieving with a tight defensive system. Like Roget Neilson in Florida for example.

But I'll say this about Marty, he has been good in the development side with the young kids and so forth. He knows how to talk to them. His in-game decision-making and the structure has been the my problem with him. I think he's a good assistant coach at this point of his development. That is why I wanted a veteran coach behind the bench with him to fix the other issues.

 

[Miller Time]

Well I did say in my post that they didn't have the greatest roster. But at the same time the coaching didn't help them much either. I have seen coaches working in the limits of his teams and overachieving with a tight defensive system. Like Roget Neilson in Florida for example.

Couldn't disagree more.

And while I don't think appeals to authority are always warranted, in this case I'd point out that beyond the award nomination recognition, many coaching fraternity peers have specifically spoken to the incredible coaching job done by MSL & his staff in building both the culture and execution of this young core.

But I'll say this about Marty, he has been good in the development side with the young kids and so forth. He knows how to talk to them. His in-game decision-making and the structure has been the my problem with him. I think he's a good assistant coach at this point of his development. That is why I wanted a veteran coach behind the bench with him to fix the other issues.

Again, couldn't disagree more.

He's shown a very astute HC approach in balancing the very difficult task of prioritizing long term skill and tactical development while pursuing improved immediate results... So much so that we win 49 games and qualified for the playoffs despite leaning heavily on young players to play big minutes & roles at every position.

I think you underestimate how difficult that is both in managing game execution and lockeroom dynamics & player buy in.

 

[Kimota]

View attachment 1028783

I mean if he did the opposite of what we want and he would have success, then more power to him. But he didn't. For instance, we all knew we would be slaughtered in Washington right off the bat but Marty still didn't want to add Jack. We lost the first two games. Then he put Jack in the third game, we win. But it still isn't enough in the fourth game, Caps went extra with Wilson destroying Carrier with no responses. So we're like alright call a few guys from Laval like Florian. Marty doesn't(I would have recall Fowler as well, personally). They come out incredibly flat physically in the last game. No pushbacks. As if they were ready to die righ there.

We may have never played in the NHL or coached but at least we lowly internet posters knew this.

 

[RandR]

You gotta admit without Hutson this team didn’t make the playoffs, that’s how big his impact was. No other player or person was a bigger factor. No Lane, no post season. Incredible the impact of one guy.

It’s cool he made the finalists, but nothing is better than Hutson. Maybe Demidov will be that much of an impact next year

A lot of things have to go right for a team to overachieve as much as the Habs did this year. Take away any of the following, and the Habs don’t make playoffs:
- having a true first line for the first time in a very long time
- entire line of Gallagher, Anderson and Dvorak having their best seasons in years
- Monty becoming a pretty good #1 goalie with Dobes replacing Primeau as backup
- fewer big injuries than the past few seasons
- addition of Laine’s PP goals and Carrier adequately filling a top-4 D spot

What ties this altogether is the environment that created the conditions for all these players to do so well. Just about every player on this team right played about as well as we could have expected given where they are in their careers plus nagging injuries a few dealt with. A close-knit dressing room was important, but it starts with the boss who in the Habs case also appears to be a great teacher of the mental aspects of the game, something very important for such a young team.

As for Hutson, I agree with you in the sense that he was the biggest difference on this team from last year. The Habs simply didn’t have a player like him before.

Hutson is uber-talented and highly-driven, but also very young and very small, all things that St-Louis once was. St-Louis knew that Hutson would make mistakes and plenty of them from inexperience plus sometimes be outplayed by much larger players, but that didn’t stop him from giving Hutson big minutes from game one, something fairly unprecedented for a rookie D whose strong side isn’t defense.

Good point about mentioning Demidov for next year. Demidov is a very different player partly because he is Russian, but if he can thrive and learn next year as much as Hutson did this year and do so without jeopardizing team results, this team really does start looking like a future cup contender.

 

[Miller Time]

I mean if he did the opposite of what we want and he would have success, then more power to him. But he didn't. For instance, we all knew we would be slaughtered in Washington right off the bat but Marty still didn't want to add Jack. We lost the first two games. Then he put Jack in the third game, we win. But it still isn't enough in the fourth game, Caps went extra with Wilson destroying Carrier with no responses. So we're like alright call a few guys from Laval like Florian. Marty doesn't(I would have recall Fowler as well, personally). They come out incredibly flat physically in the last game. No pushbacks. As if they were ready to die righ there.

We may have never played in the NHL or coached but at least we lowly internet posters knew this.

X played in game 5.
And was there in Game 4 when Wilson ran Carrier.

"No push back" yet we dominated the third periods of game 1,2 & 5.




Can only imagine how badly you'd be ripping Arniel if you were a Jets fan

 

[Sorinth]

We made the playoffs on the last game of the season, by 1 point.


Without Suzuki.
Without Monty
Without Cole
Without Skaf
Without Laine
Without Matheson
....

Go ahead and try to assign a relative impact to team points & sure, Lane would be one of the highest, but it's a silly and flawed argument to make that he's the only individual variable that led to the playoff berth.

If there is 1 player at the top of the list, it's Suzuki quite easily for me.

And, to ignore the role the coaching staff played in building the culture that quite clearly has allowed for our young core to punch above their weight is pretty clueless.

Bad take.

Not too mention many old school coaches would have used Hutson as a PP specialist. If you want nightmares just imagine how Therrien would've treated Hutson after some of his turnovers.