{"id":689586,"date":"2026-05-23T14:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T14:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/689586\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T14:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T14:11:08","slug":"bench-battle-between-nhl-legends-will-help-decide-if-canadiens-play-for-stanley-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/689586\/","title":{"rendered":"Bench battle between NHL legends will help decide if Canadiens play for Stanley Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Both are pure hockey men, masters of the battle-weary news conference tone, respected throughout the league and beloved in their locker rooms. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Both scored more than 1,000 points in the course of their decorated careers. <\/p>\n

The similarities between Martin St. Louis and Rod Brind\u2019Amour 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. <\/p>\n

But in this tale of two coaches, it may be the differences between the men that are decisive in Saturday night\u2019s Game 2 and the rest of the series. So far this season, it\u2019s St. Louis who has the edge, going 4-0 against his counterpart in the regular season and playoffs. <\/p>\n

Canadiens make statement in Eastern final opener<\/a><\/p>\n

An overlooked youth player who went undrafted in part because of his size \u2013 a bantam in the NHL at just 5-foot-8 \u2013 St. Louis managed to excel in the league with speed, playmaking and grittiness. <\/p>\n

This Canadiens team is cut from the same cloth. Two of its most dynamic players, Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson, hover around St. Louis\u2019s playing height, were similarly doubted for being undersized and share his explosiveness. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cMarty\u2019s pretty good with that,\u201d said assistant coach St\u00e9phane Robidas after the team practised on Friday. <\/p>\n

Apart from breaking guys out of scoring droughts, Robidas also credited his boss with tactical advice that facilitated the Canadiens\u2019 dominant first period in Game 1, fuelled by evading Carolina\u2019s forecheck and breaking out on odd-man rushes. <\/p>\n

\u201cMartin often talks about being balanced on the ice,\u201d the former defenceman said, a balance that allows for the counterpunching that gave the Habs their 6-2 victory and series lead Thursday night. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Juraj Slafkovsky scored twice in Montreal’s dominant Game 1 road win.James Guillory\/Reuters<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s often called a players\u2019 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got a lot of hockey sense,\u201d Anderson said on Friday. \u201cEvery day he\u2019s got something to show us. \u2026 Whenever there\u2019s a problem, he\u2019s got a solution for it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sports fever grips Montreal as Habs playoff run, F1 Grand Prix converge<\/a><\/p>\n

Perhaps no one in this series appreciates what St. Louis has done with these Canadiens more than the man tasked with checkmating him. Brind\u2019Amour 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. <\/p>\n

Still, said the veteran coach, \u201cI 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. \u2026 He played a certain way and his team plays the same way. Obviously he was a talented, skilled player and they\u2019ve got a lot of talented, skilled guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Those skilled guys gave Brind\u2019Amour\u2019s guys nightmares on Thursday night. The former Hurricanes captain was renowned in his playing days for his obsessive conditioning \u2013 he was nicknamed Rod the Bod \u2013 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe call it the stress game,\u201d 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\u2019s forecheck one too many times in the first, amassing a 4-1 lead and showing the dangers of Brind\u2019Amour\u2019s relentless pressing. <\/p>\n

That tactical matchup \u2013 really a matchup of two very similar coaches with crucially different styles \u2013 will help decide who is playing for the Stanley Cup in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Head coach Martin St. Louis’s Montreal Canadiens won the opening game of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[3793,3782,64,63,3794,1348,3774,3795,2065,3773,3787,3788,3784,3775,3772,164,2555,75,69,3781,3805,3776,3777,3786,3783,1625,2289,3796,3779,3800,3801,575,3803,3798,3802,3797,3799,3778,3790,3791,84,3789,2111,85,635,105,3792,3785,3780,1346,3804],"class_list":["post-689586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-nhl","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}