For the past month, Martin St-Louis has been going through a storm.
For the first time since he agreed to manage the Canadian, he sees fans criticizing him. Many of his decisions no longer go as well as in other years.
This is undoubtedly because the CH is visibly regressing on the ice.
St-Louis does not stir his soup much and apart from punitive training, he did not do much, in the public eye, to whip his troops in order to obtain better results.
But Saturday was a different story.
St-Louis took advantage of the fact that CH had a lead to send a message to Juraj Slafkovsky by making him skip a few shifts. And unlike Roman Rotenberg with Ivan Demidov, St-Louis did not punish Slaf for nothing… or for too long.
Slafkovsky saw his teammates console him a little (including Cole Caufield), but he knew he was in the wrong. And he blamed himself.
I saw many people say that St. Louis attacked a young person and that he did not dare attack his veterans by reserving them the same treatment. This is not false, of course.
But let’s shed another light on the story: St-Louis has though one of its attackers with a big contract (2025-2033) in his pocket.
As Gilbert Delorme said this morning in the morning show on BPM Sports, St-Louis has the pulse of his club and he knows that having though Slaf will have the desired effect.
He would clearly vote yes to the question of the day.
After all, to see that Slaf understood and said that he was mostly angry with himself (and not his coach) because he knows he has to give more, that says a lot about the how Slaf took the message.
Martin St-Louis used the right “target” to make his guys understand that he is sometimes capable of doing it. That’s why I want to throw him flowers this morning.
With Rafaël Harvey-Pinard and Patrik Laine progressing towards a return to play, there will ultimately be some internal struggle to force the guys to surpass themselves. After all, right now the only extra is Michael Pezzetta.
Internal struggle… a coach who adapts… there are guys who will have to give more to keep their place in the lineup.
In burst
– We are talking about Cole Caufield for the right reasons this year.
– He was back in Montreal at the end of the week.
– Sam Harris: one to watch. [NYT]
– He drives well.
