BROSSARD, Que. — It was at the start of the third period in the second half of a back-to-back, home-and-home series against the New Jersey Devils that Martin St. Louis took his first line out of a matchup it was decisively losing.
And while it seemed obvious enough that getting Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky away from Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt and Connor Brown would be paramount to enabling a Montreal Canadiens comeback, doing so was also counterintuitive for a coach who’d always trusted his top players to find solutions to their own problems.
The change ultimately didn’t work, and the Canadiens lost 3-0 to halt a season-best winning streak at eight games. But what mattered most was that St. Louis was willing to make it while the Canadiens were only down two goals and well within striking distance with 20 minutes left on the clock.
He made a lot of other unexpected adjustments down the stretch of the season that suggested he’s prepared to have an itchier trigger finger when he’ll need one. And he will definitely need one — especially against a master bench boss in Jon Cooper, a two-time Stanley Cup winner who’s coached 150 more playoff games than St. Louis has — in Montreal’s first-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“I’m going to focus on my team,” St. Louis said after Canadiens practice Thursday. “I’m not going to focus on the coach behind the bench over there.”
That’s the right approach, because St. Louis can’t change the experience gap between him and Cooper, but he can change the outcome of each game by making the right decisions both before and during them.
The 50-year-old has had no problem making his decisions with conviction throughout his four-plus years behind Montreal’s bench, enabling the Canadiens to steadily rise from bottom-feeder to contender. St. Louis stuck his guns to great success to not only nurture the talent possessed by Suzuki, Caufield, Slafkovsky and the others, but also harmonize it.
He taught everyone to play together in a collective game that generated an unexpected playoff berth last season, earning him a nod as one of the three finalists for the Jack Adams Award. And the lessons he took from the team’s five-game loss to the Washington Capitals last spring were applied over 106-point winter that should have him in consideration for that honour once again.
“It helped me,” said St. Louis said of his first series behind the bench.
Seeing him help the Canadiens master coming back in games earlier this season was evidence of the fact.
But seeing St. Louis press buttons in-game to help them figure out how to close out leads post-Olympics was perhaps the most telling sign he’s evolved and is prepared for what’s in front of him.
The playoffs require cold, calculated decisions that must oftentimes be made without a second’s hesitation, and St. Louis has assured he’s willing to make them.
“I for sure have a clear idea ahead of Game 1,” he said, “but things can change quickly.”
That means quickly undoing a line of Kapanen, Zach Bolduc and Kirby Dach — a trio of players who struggled with consistency throughout the season — if it doesn’t play to its intended identity of being a hard-forechecking, offensive-zone-possession-extending line. It means turning to Brendan Gallagher and Joe Veleno in Game 2 if as many as two players on that line don’t pull their weight in Game 1.
“We know we have great options,” St. Louis said on Friday.
He can’t hesitate to use them this time around.
Last time, St. Louis only turned to Arber Xhekaj after two losses in which the Canadiens were bullied by the Capitals.
This time it appears as though he’ll start with Xhekaj after extending him the runway to ramp up over the final games of this season so he could take off in the playoffs.
That leash can easily be pulled on if Xhekaj falters, with David Reinbacher and Adam Engstrom sitting as options he can plug in if he must.
Within the games themselves St. Louis will face other interesting decisions, and all the things he tested throughout the season will enable him to act without hesitation.
If he has to pull starting goaltender Jakub Dobes at some point, he knows he can depend on Jacob Fowler.
And though St. Louis likely won’t rush to move his top line out of a matchup, he likely won’t wait before it’s too late if it can’t self-correct.
St. Louis could also choose the nuclear option of splitting his top line if the team needs a different look at some point.
He boldly did that for 30-odd games earlier this season — moving Slafkovsky with Ivan Demidov and Oliver Kapanen while using one of Dach or Alex Texier with Caufield and Suzuki in his place — and it brought Slafkovsky to a new level and varied the team’s attack.
That was a move that also provided the coach valuable information ahead of the playoffs.
“I think it gives Marty something that he knows can work,” said Suzuki. “The beauty of our team is guys have played with a lot of different guys and are able to continue to produce, so it gives us a good opportunity to change lines if we need to.”
If they do, St. Louis has shown he’s better prepared to adapt and adjust.
That was a critical development for the coach this season.