Montreal Canadiens Hire Martin St. Louis As Interim Head Coach, Replacing Dominique Ducharme

Three weeks after his hiring, Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes made his first big move on Wednesday.

One day after his club was embarrassed in a 7-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils, Hughes announced that head coach Dominique Ducharme has been relieved of his duties.

Two hours later, the Canadiens issued a follow-up press release. In an out-of-the-box move, they welcomed Martin St. Louis as their new interim head coach.

“We are very happy to welcome Martin to the Canadiens organization,” said Hughes. “Not only are we adding an excellent hockey man, but with Martin we are bringing in a proven winner and a man whose competitive qualities are recognized by all who have crossed his path.”

The 46-year-old, who hails from the Montreal suburb of Laval, has a stellar hockey resume. Undrafted, St. Louis played 1,134 career NHL games over 16 seasons, collecting 1,033 points. He won two scoring titles and three Lady Byng Trophies, and in the 2003-04 season he won both the Hart Trophy and Lester B. Pearson Award as NHL MVP, as well as earning a Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

St. Louis also won gold medals at the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2004 World Cup of Hockey. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2018.

What St. Louis lacks is any significant coaching experience. According to Elite Prospects, he has spent this season as the assistant coach of the Mid Fairfield Rangers 13U AAA, where his son Mason plays forward. His only work with an NHL club since his retirement in 2015 was a half-season as a special-teams consultant with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2019.

But desperate times call for desperate measures. And the proud Canadiens franchise is currently mired in one of the darkest periods of its long history.

Never mind the Stanley Cup drought that dates back to 1993 and is now approaching 30 years. Last season, the Canadiens managed to ride a mid-season coaching change all the way to a fairytale run to the Stanley Cup Final. That makes their current cellar-dwelling status even more excruciating.

It has been less than a year since then-GM Marc Bergevin appointed Ducharme as Montreal’s interim head coach on Feb. 24, 2021. Eighteen games into the abbreviated 2020-21 season, the Canadiens fired head coach Claude Julien.

At the time, they sat fourth in the seven-team North Division with a record of 9-5-4. Under Ducharme, Montreal went 15-16-7 to complete the 56-game campaign, and held onto that fourth-place berth to squeak into the playoffs.

But after falling behind 3-1 in their first-round series, they rallied with three straight wins to knock out the first-place Toronto Maple Leafs. Then, they swept the Winnipeg Jets, before taking out the Vegas Golden Knights in six games. The last game of their playoff run came on July 7, when the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Final in five games to repeat as Stanley Cup Champions.

On July 31, Ducharme had his interim tag removed and became Montreal’s permanent head coach. He signed a three-year contract that’s worth about $1.75 million per season according to Pierre LeBrun of TSN.

Starting the season without injured captain Shea Weber and star goaltender Carey Price, it wasn’t a stretch to think that the Canadiens would struggle. But not to this degree.

When Bergevin was fired on Nov. 28, Montreal’s record was 6-15-2. The team sat 29th place in the NHL standings and was 10 points out of the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.

When Ducharme was let go on Wednesday, the Canadiens had sunk to 32nd spot, with a record of 8-30-7. They sat 32 points behind the Boston Bruins, who hold down the second-wild card position with 55 points.

All told, Ducharme’s rise and fall lasted 350 days.

“We would like to sincerely thank Dominique for his work and contributions to the Montreal Canadiens organization,” said Hughes on Wednesday. “At this point in the season, we felt it was in the best interest of the club to make a change.”

The Canadiens are currently mired in a seven-game losing streak, with a record of 0-5-2, they’ve given up 40 goals during those seven games (5.71 goals per game), while scoring only 17 (2.43 goals per game).

Before long, they hope to be inviting fans back into Bell Centre. On Tuesday, Quebec premier Francois Legault announced that attendance at the Canadiens’ arena would return to 50% of capacity on Feb. 21, with the goal of hosting full houses by mid-March.

Since mid-December, the Canadiens have played four home games with no fans in attendance. Tuesday’s loss to the Devils came in front of an audience of 500.

Covid-19 restrictions have limited attendance at arenas across Canada since mid-December. This has led to concerns that diminished gate receipts will further hamper the NHL’s timeline for re-balancing its books and get back into a growth cycle after two years of reduced revenues due to the pandemic.

The Canadiens also have another issue at hand: how will fans feel about what they see when they are allowed back inside Bell Centre?

The hiring of St. Louis should help improve that situation. Though he never suited up for the Canadiens, he’s beloved as a locally raised talent who overcame long odds to become one of the best hockey players in history.

St. Louis also has a pre-existing relationship with Habs’ executive vice president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton — who was assistant general manager when the New York Rangers acquired St. Louis from the Tampa Bay Lightning in a massive trade on March 5, 2014. He has been a champion on nearly every stage. And — importantly — his first language is French. It has long been understood that head coaches in Montreal must speak both official languages. Ideally, French is their native tongue.

In that respect, St. Louis even has a leg up on Hughes. The new GM is bilingual and was born and raised in the Montreal area, but his first language is English.

In some ways, St. Louis’ lack of experience could even benefit him from a public relations standpoint. St. Louis will skate into his new role with a backpack of personal goodwill. And with this season already lost, he’ll be spared the weight of sky-high expectations. Or, at least, lower expectations than usual in hockey-mad Montreal.

According to reports, St. Louis will hold the coaching reins for the rest of this year.

The Canadiens also confirmed that the status of their assistant coaches remains unchanged despite Ducharme’s departure. It’s business as usual for Alex Burrows, Eric Gravel, Mario Leblanc, Trevor Letowski, Eric Raymond and Luke Richardson.

St. Louis, Hughes and Gorton are set to meet with the media on Thursday morning.