But this isn\u2019t about the nickname originally given to Edward Lalonde, who dominated hockey with the Canadiens through the early 1900s. It\u2019s about Derek \u2018Newsy\u2019 Lalonde bringing a wealth of experience to Martin St. Louis\u2019 bench.<\/p>\n
Lalonde started as an assistant coach at Ferris State University in 2003 and became one at the University of Denver in 2006. He climbed up to head coach of the USHL\u2019s Green Bay Gamblers in 2011, then to head coach of the ECHL\u2019s Toledo Walleye in 2014, then to head coach of the AHL\u2019s Iowa Wild in 2016 before joining Jon Cooper in Tampa from 2018 through 2022.<\/p>\n
Lalonde won two Stanley Cups with the Lightning and then took over the Detroit Red Wings\u2019 bench for two-and-a-half seasons before spending this past one next to Craig Berube on the Toronto Maple Leafs’ bench. And now, after he was relieved of his duties by Toronto on Tuesday, he\u2019s coming to Montreal to take over the role Trevor Letowski had been occupying since 2021.<\/p>\n
Expect the Canadiens to announce the change in short order. It\u2019s happening in part because Letwoski, who originally served as Dominique Ducharme\u2019s assistant before becoming St. Louis\u2019 consigliere in February of 2022, wants to spend more time with his family.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens intend to keep Letowski in the organization in some capacity, and they\u2019re thrilled to be bringing Lalonde into the fold.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear at this point what the terms are of Lalonde\u2019s deal with the Canadiens, but St. Louis and assistants Stephane Robidas and Alex Burrows all have contracts set to expire at the end of this coming season.<\/p>\n
Extensions for them are likely coming between now and the start of the regular season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re holding an ace, play it.”<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how one agent we spoke with over the weekend categorized the nature of business in the NHL these days.<\/p>\n
It was also a line we thought applied perfectly to Kirby Dach\u2019s situation with the Canadiens.<\/p>\n
Not that we\u2019d suggest the Canadiens were dealt an ace when Dach played less than 60 games last season and less than 180 over the last three combined. They would\u2019ve preferred he play in each one he was eligible to play in, for his development to follow a linear curve rather than the up-and-mostly-down one it\u2019s been on since he tore both the ACL and MCL in his right knee in the fall of 2023.<\/p>\n
But because those injuries limited Dach to just two games that season \u2014 and because subsequent ones suffered kept him out of 25 games in 2024-25 and 45 games this past season \u2014 the Canadiens obtained an ace in contract negotiations and played it, tendering Dach his $4-million qualifying offer as a two-way contract that comes with a league-minimum salary in the AHL.<\/p>\n
Instead of signing it right away, Dach played his strongest card, filing for arbitration prior to Sunday\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n
No hard feelings on either side, just business.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s likely \u2014 though not guaranteed \u2014 to be resolved before ever getting in front of an arbiter.<\/p>\n
That Dach has until July 15 to sign his qualifying offer will prevent both parties from having it drag, which was one of the reasons Dach filed for arbitration.<\/p>\n
The other was that the 25-year-old must do everything he can to protect himself from being easily buried in the minors in the most important year of his career to date \u2014 his last one as a restricted free agent.<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s not as if the Canadiens offered Dach that two-way deal just to bury him in the minors. They clearly just want a contract for him that gives them more flexibility to either keep him or trade him.<\/p>\n
Both those options are on the table right now, as the Canadiens continue to search for ways to optimize their roster.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, there seems like an obvious compromise to be made here by both sides: Dach agrees to a lower dollar figure in exchange for a one-way contract, and the ugly business of going through with arbitration is avoided.<\/p>\n
We\u2019d expect that\u2019s where this goes, though we can\u2019t guarantee it.<\/p>\n
Smart business done with Jakub Dobes<\/p>\n
We predicted it would take longer for Dobes than it would for Ivan Demidov to have his contract extended, but we\u2019d be lying if we said we thought it would just be one day longer.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old, six-foot-four goaltender was a year away from becoming a restricted free agent with arbitration rights and a ripe target for an offer sheet, so we figured he might use that status \u2014 coupled with a performance that saw him near the top of the NHL in goals saved above expected from last trade deadline through the first three rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs \u2014 to extract as much as he could out of the Canadiens.<\/p>\n
Making them wait a bit longer likely would\u2019ve served that aim.<\/p>\n
But when the Canadiens largely pushed aside Dobes\u2019 limited experience of just 78 NHL games (regular season and post-season combined) and offered him $16.05 million spread over three seasons, he wisely signed on July 2.<\/p>\n
We say \u201cwisely\u201d because Dobes surely knows he has strong competition around him. For now, it even includes Samuel Montembeault, who wrote a cautionary tale just one season into his own three-year, $9.45-million contract with the Canadiens.<\/p>\n
Montembeault\u2019s rapid fall from grace \u2014 from fifth in goals saved above expected in 2024-25 to third-string goaltender in 2025-26 \u2014 showed Dobes just how fast things can change. And 21-year-old Jacob Fowler\u2019s rapid ascent up the Canadiens\u2019 pipeline was another reminder of that.<\/p>\n
So yeah, Dobes was wise to secure the bag once it was placed in front of him.<\/p>\n
It was smart business from the Canadiens to do it right away, too, because the price on the talented goaltender wasn\u2019t likely to go down with time.<\/p>\n
Michael Hage should do what\u2019s best for Michael Hage<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the message to the player from the Canadiens, and it\u2019s absolutely the right one to be sending at this stage of his development.<\/p>\n
Hage, who was taken 21st\u00a0overall in the 2024 draft, just turned 20 in April. He\u2019s spent the last two seasons at the University of Michigan, and if he truly believes that\u2019s the best place for him for one more, it\u2019s exactly where he should remain come fall.<\/p>\n
Just forgive us for wondering whether returning to school is the best choice for his development at this stage.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get us wrong; we\u2019re not suggesting it would be bad for his development. We\u2019d never argue against gaining more education or experience in college, and we don\u2019t have a single objection to the reasoning Hage provided for his decision when we spoke with him at Canadiens development camp last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest thing is over the past two years, how much I feel I\u2019ve grown and developed as a player and person,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was a big reason for me going back, trying to play in every situation, being a leader and just finishing what I started. I really do want to win at Michigan; that place means the world to me. So, that was a big part of why.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s as sound as it gets.<\/p>\n
Hage adding that he sees himself as a centre and saying that returning to school will enable him to play in some situations he was sheltered from last season to better prepare him for the rigours of the role at the professional level was completely well-reasoned, too.<\/p>\n
Still, we think it\u2019s good that the very first thing Hage said before all of that was that it\u2019s his decision to return to school \u201cfor now,\u201d leaving the door open for him to change his mind between now and when he must report to Michigan.<\/p>\n
Because the door to an impact role with the Canadiens is wide open to him right now and he appears physically ready to step through it and seize that role.<\/p>\n
That Hage could do it with a nurturer like St. Louis at the helm \u2014 and with Canadiens director of development Adam Nicholas right there to oversee his every step, and with Demidov as a linemate \u2014 is something he should strongly consider before finalizing his decision. Because it\u2019s hard to imagine anything would be better for his development than that.<\/p>\n
But again, returning to Michigan won\u2019t stunt Hage\u2019s development. And if the draw to compete for a national championship and the Hobey Baker Award is that much stronger for Hage, then that\u2019s where he belongs for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But this isn\u2019t about the nickname originally given to Edward Lalonde, who dominated hockey with the Canadiens through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-789476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}