Former Stanley Cup Finalist Wants to Join Martin St-Louis and His Coaching Staff
Now that Martin St-Louis is officially the head coach of the Habs, he can finally focus on preparing for his first full season behind an NHL team's bench.
Despite immediate success upon his arrival, the team went through a late-season slump, but because the stakes were not high, the team's fans did not care too much.
However, the pressure will be on for St. Louis going into next season and while most people don't expect to see the Habs in the playoffs, there will still need to be some progress.
We already know that there is a good chance that one of St. Louis' assistants behind the bench, Luke Richardson, will not be back with the team next year, as he is a candidate for the head coaching job with the Chicago Blackhawks.
But if Richardson were to leave, a replacement would have to be found, and as my colleague Keven Mawn of Fanadiens.com reports, a veteran NHL coach would be great to mentor the Habs' new coach.
In his most recent piece, journalist Marc-Antoine Godin of The Athletic revealed an important piece of information about former Dallas Stars head coach Rick Bowness. According to him, Bowness revealed that he would be interested in backing up Martin St. Louis behind the bench.
Bowness, who led the Dallas Stars to the Stanley Cup Final in 2020, has almost 40 years of NHL coaching experience, having also coached the Boston Bruins, Ottawa Senators, New York Islanders and Phoenix Coyotes.
But he was mostly an assistant in the last few years with the Vancouver Canucks and the Tampa Bay Lightning, where he worked with a certain Martin St-Louis.
Bowness would bring a lot of experience behind the bench of the Habs and having a mentor could be very positive for St-Louis, who doesn't have much coaching experience at the professional level.
However, the Habs aren't the only organization that Bowness could end up with, as Godin says several teams are interested in his services, either as an assistant or as a head coach.
| POLL | ||
Do you think the arrival of Rick Bowness as an assistant with the Habs would help the team in the short term? | ||
| Yes | 185 | 63.1 % |
| Not really | 108 | 36.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
