Head coach Martin St. Louis's Montreal Canadiens won the opening game of the Eastern Conference final. They visit the Carolina Hurricanes again on Saturday night.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Both are pure hockey men, masters of the battle-weary news conference tone, respected throughout the league and beloved in their locker rooms.
As players they became cornerstones and captains of small-market Southern U.S. franchises after being jettisoned by other organizations. Both beat Alberta teams in Game 7s to win their lone Stanley Cup, just two years apart.
Both scored more than 1,000 points in the course of their decorated careers.
The similarities between Martin St. Louis and Rod Brind’Amour are hard to miss. The head coaches of the Montreal Canadiens and Carolina Hurricanes, currently facing off against each other in the Eastern Conference final, have moulded their teams in their respective images and will be major factors behind the bench in determining who advances to the Cup final.
But in this tale of two coaches, it may be the differences between the men that are decisive in Saturday night’s Game 2 and the rest of the series. So far this season, it’s St. Louis who has the edge, going 4-0 against his counterpart in the regular season and playoffs.
Canadiens make statement in Eastern final opener
An overlooked youth player who went undrafted in part because of his size – a bantam in the NHL at just 5-foot-8 – St. Louis managed to excel in the league with speed, playmaking and grittiness.
This Canadiens team is cut from the same cloth. Two of its most dynamic players, Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson, hover around St. Louis’s playing height, were similarly doubted for being undersized and share his explosiveness.
Caufield has credited his coach with nothing less than teaching him his 50-goal scoring touch. When that touch was flickering on and off during the first two rounds, St. Louis was well-placed to help him rediscover it.
“Marty’s pretty good with that,” said assistant coach Stéphane Robidas after the team practised on Friday.
Apart from breaking guys out of scoring droughts, Robidas also credited his boss with tactical advice that facilitated the Canadiens’ dominant first period in Game 1, fuelled by evading Carolina’s forecheck and breaking out on odd-man rushes.
“Martin often talks about being balanced on the ice,” the former defenceman said, a balance that allows for the counterpunching that gave the Habs their 6-2 victory and series lead Thursday night.
Juraj Slafkovsky scored twice in Montreal's dominant Game 1 road win.James Guillory/Reuters
The head coach has consistently pushed the right buttons during these playoffs, most memorably when he left Jakub Dobes in net after three early goals in Game 5 of the second round against Buffalo, only to watch the rookie goalie find his footing and lead the team to a 6-3 win.
St. Louis credited his goalie coach with the decision after that game, a gesture consistent with his mantra of not overcoaching and letting his players and assistants do their job. He’s often called a players’ coach, and more than any single piece of tactical advice, it is overall savvy and ability to communicate that Habs power forward Josh Anderson appreciates.
“He’s got a lot of hockey sense,” Anderson said on Friday. “Every day he’s got something to show us. … Whenever there’s a problem, he’s got a solution for it.”
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Perhaps no one in this series appreciates what St. Louis has done with these Canadiens more than the man tasked with checkmating him. Brind’Amour played against his younger counterpart when they were with the Hurricanes and the Tampa Bay Lightning, respectively, and preceded St. Louis into coaching by a handful of years.
Still, said the veteran coach, “I had the utmost respect for him when I played against him. I knew how good of a player he was. Like any guys who have played who are coaching, they bring their personality to the team. … He played a certain way and his team plays the same way. Obviously he was a talented, skilled player and they’ve got a lot of talented, skilled guys.”
Rod Brind'Amour meets the media after Game 1, the Hurricanes' first loss of the playoffs. Carolina reached the third round by sweeping Ottawa and Philadelphia.Karl B DeBlaker/The Associated Press
Those skilled guys gave Brind’Amour’s guys nightmares on Thursday night. The former Hurricanes captain was renowned in his playing days for his obsessive conditioning – he was nicknamed Rod the Bod – and his relentless, physical style of play. His team now plays the same way, throwing waves of pressure at the opposing team and leaving them little time on the puck.
“We call it the stress game,” said Carolina veteran forward Taylor Hall. In the second period, it forced the Canadiens to collapse back into their own end. But by then the game was all but decided after Montreal slipped away from Carolina’s forecheck one too many times in the first, amassing a 4-1 lead and showing the dangers of Brind’Amour’s relentless pressing.
That tactical matchup – really a matchup of two very similar coaches with crucially different styles – will help decide who is playing for the Stanley Cup in June.