Martin St. Louis used his first practice as an NHL coach to show that even rookies can have experience

It came off as a joke, and it probably was.

But there was some truth behind it, as it turns out.

When Martin St. Louis was asked during his introductory news conference Thursday what he would say to people doubting his ability to coach in the NHL with no professional coaching experience, having served as a coach only at the pee-wee level with the Mid Fairfield Youth Hockey Association, the one-liner was quick, almost as if it was prepared in advance knowing full well this question was coming.

“If (there’s) anything this team needs right now, it’s to have fun,” St. Louis said. “I know when they were pee-wees, they had a lot of fun, so I’m probably the most qualified guy right now.”

He had a little grin on his face as he said it. Those in the room laughed.

But then St. Louis ran his first practice Friday following a 5-2 loss to the Washington Capitals in his coaching debut, a game where the Canadiens looked more competitive than they had in a long time despite the seemingly lopsided score. And the more you watched, the more you realized maybe that wasn’t a joke after all.

The practice began with St. Louis doing and saying nothing. It was Trevor Letowski who set the first drill in motion, a warmup drill that amounted to two or three players skating the length of the ice and facing assistant coaches Luke Richardson or Alex Burrows as the only opposition, and they didn’t put up much of a fight. Neither did goaltenders Cayden Primeau nor Sam Montembeault.

Goals were flowing, which was the point. Players were trying fancy moves, shooting pucks bar down, scoring at will and loving it. It probably wasn’t much fun for the goaltenders, who probably could have used a good dose of fun, but the rest of the guys loved it.

But then St. Louis went to work. He explained the next drill, a flowy two-on-one drill that sort of morphed into a regroup and into another two-on-one at the other end of the ice. St. Louis was at the whiteboard explaining and making big circular motions with his hands, clearly emphasizing the importance of remaining in constant motion and keeping the pace high.

This was followed by the highlight of practice, a game of three-on-three in a restrained area lined by players. The unique part of it was the players in red or white could use the players wearing their jersey colour who were lining the playing area. They could make a pass to them to get out of trouble, creating another layer of decision-making for the players to handle.

St. Louis spent roughly two minutes explaining the drill, and pointed out to the players that this was meant to teach them to process information and act on it. The restrained space forced them to process that information quicker.

“You’re able to wire their brain, develop their brain to think a little bit quicker, so when you put it back on the long ice, they’ll feel they have more time,” St. Louis said after practice. “With more time, you usually make a little bit better decisions and execute a little bit better. I try to suffocate them a little bit then to expand it after when they get in the big game.”

At one point, when the drill wasn’t working quite as he wanted, St. Louis stopped it and addressed it.

Once it was over, the players gathered in a circle for a post-practice stretch, as they normally do. But St. Louis used that time to address the group, which was somewhat unusual. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a coach at this level do that.

“Just talking about preparation from every single guy,” Nick Suzuki said of the post-practice chat, “whether you’re in the lineup, injured or out of the lineup right now, you can do little things to be ready for the next day.”

It was striking to see someone who has no NHL coaching experience so comfortable addressing the group, and how he had the players’ undivided attention as he did it. According to the players, he’s had their attention from the moment he walked in the dressing room Thursday morning and first addressed the team.

“He was confident. Not arrogant, but confident. There is a difference,” Brendan Gallagher said. “He understood exactly the situation and he has a lot of belief in himself. When you see that as players, you’re obviously going to believe in what he’s saying, and everything he’s saying, it has a purpose.”

“It was one of those really impressive moments,” Paul Byron added. “For a new guy, he doesn’t know anyone in the room, and he just instantly grabs everyone’s attention. Everyone kind of felt the fire in his voice and his eyes.”

The questions about St. Louis’ lack of experience will follow him the rest of the season. And there will be moments when it shows. He will make mistakes, he will make questionable decisions and he will learn on the job.

But for a new coach who says he has lots of ideas about how his team should play the game, how many things he wants to implement, what might have been the most impressive part of St. Louis’ first practice was how little of it he implemented. In fact, he didn’t really implement any of it.

“We didn’t do any teaching today,” he said.

Imagine getting fast-tracked to your dream job, a job you might not necessarily be fully prepared to do, how quickly would you want to prove you can actually do it? The temptation to come roaring out of the gates and bombarding his players with information while also putting on a show for the media would have been enormous for just about anyone.

You think I can’t do this? Well, watch this.

But St. Louis didn’t do that.

“Were the drills designed to how we want to play like? A little bit. But not really,” he said. “It wasn’t something new, it was something we talked about before the game yesterday. I think our goal is to learn to play on top of people, and I think we did that in one of the drills today.”

What St. Louis focused on was what he had joked about the previous day. He focused on fun, and there were smiles on all the players’ faces throughout the brief practice. It was mission accomplished.

And when asked where he picked up that fun three-on-three drill, where he picked up using restrained space in practice to develop decision-making ability, a grin came across St. Louis’ face. It was very similar to the grin that came across his face one day earlier when he made that joke that turned out not to be a joke at all.

“Coaching youth hockey,” he said.

St. Louis might not have NHL coaching experience, and that might wind up being a problem at some point. But he does have experience. He has experience as a superstar NHL player who scratched and clawed his way to the NHL and kept improving every year until he reached the elite of the league. And he has experience coaching kids.

He said he feels hockey is hockey, no matter what level it is.

He apparently meant it.

(Photo: Francois Lacasse / NHLI via Getty Images)