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They are certainly running an interesting lab experiment in Montreal, where the newly installed executive vice president charged with resurrecting the shredded Les Glorieux has hired a general manager with no experience, who in turned has hired an interim coach with no experience.
Maybe this will work. Maybe the alliance between party of the first part Jeff Gorton, novice GM Kent Hughes and the neophyte coach Marty St. Louis that was forged across youth hockey rinks in Connecticut will be able to dig out of the rubble left behind by former GM Marc Bergevin.
I’ve said this before. If you’re hiring Gorton, you are presumably hiring him for his expertise in talent evaluation and not because of his proficiency as an administrator or his experience as an intermediary between the hockey club and ownership. Thus, if you are hiring Gorton, you are hiring him as your GM.
But not in Montreal. Instead the guy making the calls on personnel is Hughes, who left a successful career behind as an agent to step into the front office. Or maybe it’s a combination of Gorton and Hughes? That might not be clarified. It seems as if Hughes made the call to hire St. Louis, though he obviously did not do this without Gorton’s endorsement.
Indeed, when Gorton was GM of the Rangers, he offered St. Louis the head-coaching job with the AHL Wolf Pack during the summer of 2017. No. 26 declined because he wanted to devote his time to coaching his sons’ youth hockey teams. The coaching search ultimately yielded Keith McCambridge, and the less said about that the better.
And now, St. Louis. From a P.R. sense, this is maybe like the Knicks at one time hiring Willis Reed to coach. Who in New York was going to criticize The Captain — who, by the way, was gone after 96 games? And though St. Louis never played for the Habs, he’s a local hero. His presence — and his heritage — probably will stanch the bleeding for at least a while in Montreal.
There were a couple of times the Rangers considered — or at least considered considering — hiring Mark Messier as head coach, the last time in 2013 following John Tortorella’s exit when No. 11 was actually and impulsively offered the job by then-GM Glen Sather before everyone took a step back.
Messier went through an interview process, but the position went instead to Alain Vigneault. Messier, who had coached youth hockey, was told he had no experience. He was told he would have to serve an apprenticeship in the AHL. His response essentially was that he had served a 25-year apprenticeship on the ice.
His candidacy was generally ridiculed by a majority of the fan base and with near unanimity within the industry. Yet the hiring of St. Louis, whose rare skill as a motivator mirrors one of Messier’s greatest attributes, has for the most part been hailed as innovative. Ten years later, perhaps the perspective has changed.
The Canadiens have kilometers and kilometers to go before they sleep, as Robert Frost would have written had he been born, say, in Saskatchewan. I wonder if St. Louis has the patience to put up with the mistakes the franchise’s young players will inevitably commit. That will be an essential part of his job description. It will also be interesting to see how he reacts if and when he receives criticism and he’s evaluated on his work rather than his name.
Very few great players become great coaches. Toe Blake — the Habs’ Hall-of-Fame left wing on the famed Punch Line with Elmer Lach in the middle and Rocket Richard on the right, before winning eight Cups behind the Montreal bench — is at the top of the list. Jacques Lemaire may be next. But most fail.
Perhaps experience is not necessary. Perhaps St. Louis will thrive in this role. Maybe it is made for him. It’s an interesting move, one seemingly heavy with P.R. implications within an operation that has become a high-profile lab experiment.
So is it true, as I have been told by more than one individual, that the Devils lobbied to have Jack Hughes named to the Metro Division All-Star team rather than Jesper Bratt?
Because it sure sounds like something the organization that seems more heavily invested in social media than in building a winning operation would do.
Nils Lundkvist and Vitali Kravtsov for Dawson Mercer. Who says no? Oh, New Jersey GM Tom Fitzgerald?
So at 3:37 of the third period of the Islanders’ 6-3 victory at Vancouver on Wednesday, J.T. Miller was tripped by J-G Pageau. A delayed penalty was signaled. But while falling, Miller’s stick caught Pageau in the face, drawing blood. And because Rule 60.1 states, “Players and goalkeepers must be in control and responsible for their stick,” Miller was assessed a double-minor for high-sticking, and the Islanders wound up on the power play.
There is an exception in the high-sticking rule relating to a “normal windup or follow through of a shooting motion.” The rule should be amended to an include an exception for a player who has been fouled.
So Brad Marchand, the Bruins’ bleating heart, is whining about the six-game suspension he was assessed for punching Tristan Jarry in the side of the head before putting a stick in the mask of the Pittsburgh goaltender on Thursday. He is complaining the sentence is more about his history than this specific incident.
Well, I am complaining that an individual who has now been suspended eight times in his career gets away with six games as punishment. There had been three two-game suspensions, a pair of three-game suspensions and two for five games. And now this.
The NHL’s catch-and-release program clearly has not been a deterrent for the recidivist in Boston, who seems to find glory in his act as the league’s biggest creep. The league has indulged this miscreant for years. Eight times to the hoosegow and the sentence is somehow just six games.
Of course, it is about precedent. It is only unfortunate that Brett Kavanaugh is not in charge of NHL discipline.
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