Hockey is a small universe. Everyone knows each other without necessarily having direct ties. Contacts are often made through third parties. This is how Marc Bureau was asked to pass on his expertise in faceoffs to the Canadiens and Laval Rocket players for the rest of the season.
• Also read: The CH retains the services of Marc Bureau
The association was made through Philippe Lecavalier, brother of the famous Habs hockey operations advisor. Lecavalier is a player agent at the Quartexx firm, where Kent Hughes worked before being hired as general manager of the Canadiens.
Bureau knew several of the agency’s clients. Either for having worked with them as a personal trainer, or during camps organized by Quartexx, or through its associations with teams from the Maritimes Quebec Junior Hockey League.
Among them was a certain Patrice Bergeron, when the latter was doing his apprenticeship with the Acadie-Bathurst Titan.
Who was Bergeron’s agent?
Kent Hughes, but he and Bureau had never met before the general manager recently offered him a position as a faceoff advisor. Bureau was clear during that meeting.
Regular monitoring necessary
“I told Kent that my duties could not be reduced to one or two visits a month,” Bureau says.
“I compare this job to being a goalkeeper coach. It requires fairly regular monitoring.”
Bureau doesn’t hide the fact that he felt a little nervous when he first showed up at the Canadiens’ training complex in Brossard. He wondered what kind of reception he would receive from the National League professionals.
He left there delighted.
“The guys are nice,” Bureau continues.
“I’m not here to change their game, but to help them improve in the details of the game. When we win faceoffs, it has a positive influence on the time of possession of the puck.”
But progress does not happen with a simple snap of the fingers. The numbers say it when you look at the Canadiens’ faceoff efficiency percentages in seven aspects of the game.
Here they are. Faceoffs won: 49.3% (30th); at even strength: 50.0% (21st); numerical superiorities: 47.2% (31st); numerical inferiorities: 46.9% (16th); offensive zone: 50% (22nd); neutral zone: 48.5% and defensive zone: 50.4% (14th).
“A good average is 55% and above,” continues Bureau.
“But experience can’t be bought. Like I tell the guys, John Tavares and Ryan O’Reilly were just like them at their age. You’re going to win faceoffs and you’re going to lose faceoffs.”
It happens in the head
In Montreal, the guys in question are Nick Suzuki, Kirby Dach, Christian Dvorak and Jake Evans, a defensive center like Bureau during his 12-season NHL career.
At the request of Martin St-Louis, Bureau spent time with them before the training period, so as not to interfere with its progress. It’s the same thing with goalkeepers.
“Three or four players came up to me after practice to ask me questions and ask me for specific things,” Bureau said.
“I told them that we would look into the practical aspect of their questions at our next meeting.”
It hasn’t been impossible in recent weeks, as the team has spent more time on the road.
“Facing is like golf,” Bureau explains.
“It’s mental, it happens between the ears. A golfer who generally hits the ball down the center of the fairway will have a lot of questions when he starts hitting left or right.
“For faceoffs, you’re going to wonder if you’re holding your stick at the right height or you’re going to wonder about the position of your legs. Example: are they too far apart?
One of the observations Bureau made of the centerfielders was about their stick grip. He asked them why they cut their sticks.
Happy like a king
The Trois-Rivières resident is approaching this new phase of his life with enthusiasm.
“I’m glad Kent called me,” he says enthusiastically.
“I’m not a Hall of Famer, but I can teach facets. I have been called upon to do this often since I played my last game in the National League 23 years ago. Yanic Perreault does the same work as me with the Chicago Blackhawks [il porte le titre de directeur du développement des joueurs].»
Bureau is a man of challenges.
Like Martin St-Louis, whom he worked with briefly with the Calgary Flames at the end of his playing career, he was not drafted. Without having the talent of the Canadiens head coach, he too worked hard to reach the NHL and make a career there.
He should be a good teacher to his students.
