Canadiens management could write a great book about how to rebuild an NHL team.<\/p>\n
In their fourth full season of a rebuild, the Canadiens are the youngest team in the playoffs for the second straight year and they are now one win away from the Eastern Conference final after beating the Sabres 6-3 Thursday night in Buffalo in Game 5 of the best-of-seven second-round playoff series. The Canadiens are also nine wins away from a 25th championship banner hanging from the rafters of the Bell Centre.<\/p>\n
Impressive \u2014 even if they don\u2019t reach that ultimate goal this season. <\/p>\n
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\u201cThere\u2019s so many parts of the game that you have to be detailed in and it takes time to build that,\u201d says Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis, addressing his players during a timeout in Game 4 against the Buffalo Sabres in Montreal on Tuesday. Allen McInnis \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\n
The Sabres missed the playoffs for a record 14 straight years before this season. The Detroit Red Wings missed the playoffs for the 10th straight year this season.<\/p>\n
Since being hired as head coach on Feb. 9, 2022,<\/a> Martin St. Louis has known what style of hockey he wanted the Canadiens to play, but he also realized it would take time. From the start, he has talked about being patient and going page by page and chapter by chapter with the rebuilding plan.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if you ever get to the end of the book because I feel you always keep writing,\u201d St. Louis said in January of last season. \u201cBut we\u2019re definitely in a really\u00a0good place. There\u2019s blank pages always and our job (as coaches) is when you feel you have a\u00a0good story, there\u2019s more pages to keep writing and that\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do. And don\u2019t just write to write. Have a purpose if you\u2019re going to keep writing and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing. We\u2019re going to add things. We\u2019ll make adjustments and stuff. But the power of the pen.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel coaches, we\u2019re salesmen and it\u2019s how you convince them by example, by discussions that it makes sense for them,\u201d St. Louis added. \u201cBecause if it makes sense for them, they\u2019re teaching each other. They come off the ice, they know what they should have done. To me, when you have the players teaching themselves, it\u2019s because it\u2019s very\u00a0clear, and I feel we\u2019re getting there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n At the time, Canadiens forward Cole Caufield said: \u201cIt\u2019s one\u00a0chapter\u00a0at a time, and when you move on, you can\u2019t forget the\u00a0chapter\u00a0before. I think that\u2019s why it\u2019s taken some time.\u201d<\/p>\n Not a lot of time.<\/p>\n Before Game 4 against the Sabres, I asked St. Louis why his players have been able to read his rebuilding book so quickly \u2014 apart from having a great teacher.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a figure of speech,\u201d St. Louis said with a smile when reminded of his comments from last year. \u201cMy point at that time is I\u2019m not going to give them so much\u00a0stuff and expect them to absorb everything. It takes time to build a team, so you try to go one\u00a0step at a time. You\u2019re not going to come in and (say), \u2018Read this, we\u2019re playing like that tomorrow.\u2019 So I think you got to be patient with how you\u2019re building your team.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s so many parts of the game that you have to be detailed in and it takes time to build that,\u201d he added. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve gone at the right pace and it\u2019s not necessarily that pace wasn\u2019t set in\u00a0stone \u2014 you got to go at that pace. Your team talks to you. You got to listen to your team and you got to observe and see if they\u2019re ready for the next thing. I\u2019ve liked all the\u00a0steps that we\u2019ve taken and we\u2019re going to keep continuing to take\u00a0steps and\u00a0still add some details and being able to adjust based on what kind of\u00a0style you\u2019re playing.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s just the process of maturing as a team. But I like where our game\u2019s at. It\u2019s been fun to go through it, but it\u2019s not like we\u00a0started this and had it set in\u00a0stone we got to go at this pace. The group has been very engaged and that\u2019s allowed us to keep moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n President of hockey operations Jeff Gorton and general manager Kent Hughes have provided St. Louis with players to help speed up the rebuilding process. <\/p>\n Thirteen of the 20 players the Canadiens dressed for Game 4 against the Sabres were acquired after this rebuild started. <\/p>\n Four players were drafted: Juraj Slafkovsky, Lane Hutson, Ivan Demidov and Jacob Fowler.<\/p>\n Seven players were acquired through trades: Mike Matheson, Kirby Dach, Alex Newhook, Alexandre Carrier, Zachary Bolduc, Noah Dobson and Phillip Danault.<\/p>\n Two players were signed as free agents: Joe Veleno and Alexandre Texier.<\/p>\n Danault, acquired from the Los Angeles Kings in December in exchange for one of two second-round picks the Canadiens held for this year\u2019s NHL Draft<\/a>, is very impressed by the rebuilding job management has done.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like they\u2019re just one step ahead,\u201d Danault said. \u201cThey know exactly what they need to do and what player they need to get. They like putting the bricks one after one and it just seems like it works every time. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s good to see from management and it shows up on the ice, too,\u201d Danault added. \u201cThey get the results, which says a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a great book, but it\u2019s not finished yet.<\/p>\n