Stu Cowan: Canadiens are happy campers again under Martin St. Louis

Article content

The Canadiens have suddenly started to play like a team again.

Article content

Not only that, they’ve become fun to watch.

This road-to-nowhere season has finally taken some direction since the hiring of Martin St. Louis as interim head coach.

The Canadiens headed into Wednesday night’s game against the Buffalo Sabers on a three-game winning streak after failing to win two in a row during the first 45 games with Dominique Ducharme as head coach.

Not only has the team become fun to watch in the first six games with St. Louis behind the bench — posting a 3-3 record — the players also look like they’re having fun.

Josh Anderson’s quotes after Ducharme’s final game — an embarrassing 7-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Feb. 8 — must have played into management’s decision to make a coaching change. After being named executive vice-president of hockey operations in November, Jeff Gorton said Ducharme’s job was safe until the end of the season.

Article content

“We got a lot of hockey games together and it is not fun losing right now,” Anderson said after the Canadiens lost their seventh straight game (0-5-2) against the Devils. “It’s not fun coming to the rink. We have to set our mindset right, right now and just regroup, to be honest with you. We gotta make hockey fun again and just refresh.”

The Canadiens have quickly gone from embarrassing to fun with St. Louis — and it has been refreshing.

During a 7-2 loss to Edmonton on Jan. 28, Sam Montembeault was run over behind his net by the Oilers’ Zach Kassian and none of the goalie’s teammates came to his defense. There was a big difference in Monday’s 5-2 win over Toronto when Nick Suzuki got into a scuffle with a couple of Maple Leafs and all four of the other players on the ice wearing bleu-blanc-rouge sweaters came to his defense of him.

Article content

“We talked about that after that hit against Edmonton,” Montembeault said after Monday’s game. “I think the guys are doing a much better job. Even yesterday in New York, when Cole (Caufield) got hit in the corner (by the Islanders’ Cal Clutterbuck), Andy (Anderson) went straight at him. It’s a lot more fun when we win. The guys are really sticking up for each other and it’s fun to see.”

Nobody is having more fun than Caufield. After scoring only one goal in his first 30 games this season, Caufield had five goals in the first six games with St. Louis as coach.

“I think he trusts me,” Caufield said. “He’s putting me out there in situations to succeed. I’m playing with two great players, too (Anderson and Suzuki), so that helps. He trusts my game and I think that’s the biggest part for me. I just have to keep playing the right way.”

Article content

St. Louis said he can live with mistakes Caufield makes because of the upside in his offensive game, adding it’s a case of a player and coach meeting halfway. Caufield’s play and his facial expressions of him on the ice show that the fear of making mistakes has been lifted and he can just play hockey the way he knows how.

There has been a quick culture change in the locker room and it’s showing on the ice.

“I think just having some non-negotiables,” St. Louis said Wednesday morning when asked to explain the change. “You’ve got to give them some kind of freedom, but you’ve got to have some non-negotiables and accountability.”

When asked what those non-negotiables are, St. Louis said: “I’m not going to get into that. But there’s just non-negotiables. As a dad with kids, I have non-negotiables and they’re probably different from people to people. But my team knows what mine are.”

Article content

The Canadiens are buying what St. Louis is selling after having obviously tuned out Ducharme. The most outspoken critic of Ducharme’s system was Jeff Petry. The veteran defenseman headed into Wednesday’s game on a four-game point streak with 2-3-5 totals during that span. Petry had 1-5-6 totals in his first 40 games this season.

St. Louis’s early impact on the Canadiens has been quite stunning, but can it last? When Mario Tremblay took over from Jacques Demers as head coach in 1995, the Canadiens immediately went on a six-game winning streak and went 12-1-1 in the first 14 games. But things didn’t end well for Tremblay as a coach.

Like Tremblay, St. Louis had no NHL coaching experience before taking the job.

“Every time I step on the bench during the game, I just have that feeling I’m in the right place and that’s important,” St. Louis said last weekend. “All the work in between is hard work. It’s hard, but I enjoy that. Sometimes all that is demanding and tiring, but when I step on the bench it makes everything right and all the hard work in between the games doesn’t compare to that feeling I get stepping on the bench.”

There’s definitely a new feeling around the Canadiens since St. Louis took over.

[email protected]

twitter.com/StuCowan1