Six days ahead of the regular season, Montreal Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis was asked about how young players can attack and fight for their positions in the NHL.
St. Louis, at 5-foot-8, 180 pounds, was an undersized and undrafted forward who scratched and clawed his way into the League, becoming a Stanley Cup champion with the 2003-04 Tampa Bay Lightning and entering the Hockey Hall of Fame with the Class of 2018. The Canadiens' average age through Tuesday was 26.81, sixth youngest in the League.
His advice: Every day is a reboot, a new beginning.
"For any young guys, they're knocking on the door and trying to push the door open, just focus on each and every day," St. Louis said Sept. 23. "There's no secret sauce. There's just consistent work and discipline through your work, your process. Going from actually playing a game in the NHL to becoming a regular, that's another level, so you might as well have a consistent process that's going to elevate your percentages to actually do have a career."
St. Louis began this season as the early favorite for the Jack Adams Award, per a panel of 16 NHL.com voters, with two staff writers picking the Canadiens (to win the Stanley Cup. He received 58 out of 240 total points, including seven for first place. Ryan Warsofsky of the San Jose Sharks (49 votes, four first place) was second followed by Spencer Carbery of the Washington Capitals (25 votes, one first place).
He's in his sixth season with the Canadiens, the fourth longest-tenured coach in the NHL, after replacing Dominique Ducharme on Feb. 9, 2022. He took over with sparse coaching experience as a special teams consultant with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2018-19 and head coach of the Mid Fairfield Rangers U13 AAA (Greenwich, Connecticut) and guiding his youngest son, Mason.
St. Louis the player went to work knowing his was better than his competition and he's following that doctrine as a coach. Since 2022-23, his first full season, Montreal has climbed from 68 points to 76 in 2023-24, 91 in 2024-25 and 106 last season. There was a growing sense of a winning culture throughout training camp, a full buy-in breeding confidence that the Canadiens will go further than their five-game loss to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes in the 2026 Eastern Conference Final.
"They're very engaged and embracing (expectations) and welcoming them, but then to me it's the attitude on the ice," St. Louis said Sept. 18. "I feel the group looks really hungry and not just in the effort, but also in the engagement and the conversations that we're having."
St. Louis is rare to miss a slight, his size a factor in going undrafted despite leading the NCAA with 48 assists and 71 points as a sophomore at the University of Vermont (1994-95) and not getting selected in the 2000 NHL Expansion Draft after getting exposed by the Calgary Flames. His rise with the Canadiens could include a third consecutive 40-win season that would make him the sixth coach to get 200 with the franchise, joining Toe Blake (500), Dick Irvin (431), Scotty Bowman (419), Michel Therrien (271) and Claude Julien (201).
Whether he felt slighted by a third-place finish in 2024-25 Jack Adams voting behind Carbery and Scott Arneil (Winnipeg Jets), he carries a chip, the thought of "I'm better than you," and endorses such an attitude to his players. That helped him to the Hall of Fame and might get the Canadiens to the Stanley Cup.
"If you have an honest approach, there's nothing wrong than thinking you're better than certain guys," St. Louis said. "I feel like if you don't have that, it's really hard to find your place. Thinking you're better, sometimes even if you're not, that's OK."
