Stu Cowan: Martin St. Louis loving his job as head coach of Canadiens

Martin St. Louis had no idea what the future held in store for him when he showed up at his first NHL training camp as a player.

“My first camp was in Ottawa in 1997,” the Canadiens’ head coach recalled Thursday. “I was just an invite.”

St. Louis was never selected at the NHL draft despite being a star at the University of Vermont for four seasons and twice being a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award as the top player in U.S. college hockey.

In his final season at Vermont in 1996-97, St. Louis posted 24-36-60 totals in 36 games — but he was only 5-foot-8.

“I remember being nervous, excited, worried,” St. Louis recalled about his first training camp with the Senators. “I mean there’s so many feelings that goes through your head when you show up at this stage. It’s to really control what you can. The two things for me that you can control the most is your work ethic and your attitude. If you have a bad day and you’re discouraged and you bring that negative energy the next day you have no chance. So to me it’s just control what you can.”

St. Louis was able to do that even after being released by the Senators and then playing for the AHL’s Saint John Flames and the IHL’s Cleveland Lumberjacks before making his NHL debut with the Calgary Flames during the 1998-99 season. Calgary let St. Louis go after he played 69 NHL games over two seasons and posted 4-16-20 totals.

The Tampa Bay Lightning then signed St. Louis and he went on to have a Hall of Fame career, winning the Stanley Cup in 2004, along with the Hart Trophy as league MVP and the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s leading scorer with 38-56-94 totals in 82 games.

Now St. Louis is running his first NHL training camp as a head coach and he can understand how the young players feel. He said work ethic and enthusiasm are two of the most important things to start training camp. St. Louis added that the Canadiens are not looking at the past and only looking to the future at this camp.

St. Louis is focusing on physical conditioning and getting the players into a competition mode early at camp and will slowly introduce the concepts he wants the team to use. He doesn’t like systems.

“Systems box players in,” St. Louis said after the Canadiens hired him last February to replace Dominique Ducharme. “That’s one of the things I hated the most as a player.”

Another thing St. Louis will be working on at this camp is developing a team culture within a family atmosphere.

“We’re definitely taking a modern approach in how we want to develop our guys in our day-to-day stuff,” he said. “This isn’t a new culture, sort of speak. One thing we are, we’re very clear in anything. We define what is our culture. I think the players understand that because I think the culture gets thrown around and it’s very broad, it’s very general. So for us, we do want a family atmosphere and it starts with our culture.”

St. Louis’s experience at his first NHL training camp is a big reason why the Canadiens invited 74 players to camp this year.

“I think this year it was important to bring as many guys as we could, especially our own people,” St. Louis said Friday. “I wanted to have small groups in terms of teams to get more reps in those (scrimmage) games, more touches, help the fitness. But also show everyone what we’re doing here and how we do it. As a young guy, I remember being invited to the camp and being next to NHL guys was unbelievable. And sometimes you just never know what that can do for a player What I mean by that is — I know I did — I put the NHL so far up that you almost sell yourself short before even coming into it. So to get that experience to be next to those guys, now you realize: I’m not that far. And you’d be amazed what that can do for a player if he realizes he’s not that far.”

St. Louis also wants the youngsters at camp to play to their strengths.

“I’m a big believer — especially with young guys — I look at their ceiling,” he said. “I don’t care about the floor. I really don’t when they’re young. Show me your ceiling — we’ll fix the floor.”

While CBA rules only allow players to spend a maximum of three hours a day at a practice or training facility, the days are much longer for coaches during training camp. St. Louis arrived at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard at 8 a.m. Friday and met with the media just before 4:30 p.m. after the players had two separate scrimmages followed by practice sessions.

St. Louis seems to be enjoying every minute of his coaching job.

“Listen, I love hockey,” he said. “Being part of a team is my favourite thing in life. There’s nothing better — whatever that is. For me, when I retired I started coaching my kids and I was part of a team. So I’ve been on a team my whole life and that’s my favourite thing about life is working with people and common goals and working through the struggles, the good and the bad.

“There’s nothing better.”

scowan@postmedia.com

twitter.com/StuCowan1

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