Stu Cowan: Coach Martin St. Louis preaches positivity with Canadiens

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Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis is an enormous believer within the energy of constructive pondering.

It’s one thing he discovered as a younger boy from his mom, France.

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“She constructed my confidence,” St. Louis advised me throughout a one-on-one interview in his Bell Centre workplace final season.

St. Louis recalled the time he obtained lower from his Laval peewee double-A crew.

“I come dwelling and I’m disillusioned and crying,” he stated. “The factor about my mother and father, they by no means stated that I obtained screwed or they don’t know what they’re speaking about. It was like, ‘It’s OK. We’re going to go have enjoyable there.’ My mother can be like, ‘Marty, don’t fear about it. You’re going to point out them.’ So it was by no means like a detrimental. It was all the time like, ‘They don’t know you but. However belief me, you’ll present them.’

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“To me, my mother believed in me a lot it made me consider in myself a lot,” St. Louis added. “I don’t know if she knew what she was doing at the moment. If that was her intention, I don’t know.”

These classes discovered from his mom helped St. Louis turn into a Corridor of Fame participant regardless of by no means being chosen on the NHL Draft. Sadly, his mom handed away in 2014 from a coronary heart assault at age 63, however St. Louis is now instructing her classes to his gamers with the Canadiens.

There was loads of negativity surrounding the Canadiens after they misplaced 5-2 to the Minnesota Wild final Tuesday on the Bell Centre after they allowed two short-handed targets and three power-play targets whereas going 0-for-5 on the ability play.

St. Louis addressed the negativity when he met with the media after Saturday’s morning skate on the Bell Centre forward of a recreation in opposition to the Washington Capitals.

“I need to be actual cautious how I phrase this,” St. Louis stated. “The main focus has been a lot on our particular groups these previous couple of days. And, yeah, you may have a look at it as a detrimental by means of one recreation. I didn’t get many questions on our five-on-five that’s actually good, proper? You guys are likely to give attention to loads of the stuff that most likely we’d like corrections and I get it. I believe society’s like that. Within the dictionary, each constructive phrase has 4 negatives. For each constructive you’ve gotten 4 negatives, so we perceive that we’re combating that.

“These are all studying moments from our group and I actually like the place we’re,” he added. “I’m not anxious concerning the stuff that wants correction as a result of we’re going to work at correcting them. I’m actually pleased with our five-on-five recreation. I do know I’m going lengthy on this, however there’s loads to love.”

The Canadiens blew a 2-0 lead within the third interval Saturday evening in opposition to the Capitals, however got here away with a 3-2 win when Cole Caufield scored in extra time, enhancing their file to 2-1-1 heading into Monday evening’s recreation in opposition to the Sabres in Buffalo. The Canadiens went 1-for-6 on the ability play in opposition to Washington and killed off all 5 Capitals energy performs.

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Heading into Monday’s recreation, the Canadiens ranked twenty fourth within the NHL on the ability play (11.8 per cent) and fifteenth in penalty-killing (79.2 per cent). 5-on-five, they’d scored 9 targets whereas permitting solely two.

“There’s a lot constructive and to me it’s onerous generally to listen to you guys give attention to the detrimental,” St. Louis advised reporters in his post-game information convention Saturday. “I do know you guys need to do your job … I get it. Nevertheless it’s simple to get misplaced as a gaggle as a result of we’re chasing perfection figuring out that we’ll by no means get there. It’s unimaginable to be excellent. However we’re fixing issues as we see it and generally you’re going to repair one thing after which the factor that was nice now is just not pretty much as good. So it’s a balancing act slightly bit, however that’s the league. You’ve gotten actually a brief quantity of observe time. It’s actually onerous to sort things fast.”

This can be a busy week for the Canadiens with 4 video games in six nights. After the sport in Buffalo, they may face the New Jersey Devils on the Bell Centre on Tuesday, adopted by the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday and the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday. Wednesday is a scheduled time without work, so the Canadiens gained’t have one other full observe till Friday.

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“It’s actually onerous to sort things, however we all know that there’s elements of our recreation that we’ve got to maintain enhancing and that’s what we’re doing,” St. Louis stated after Saturday’s recreation. “As you progress all through the season you need to continuously get higher at every little thing, however it’s a must to choose a number of issues as they arrive.

“I like my crew,” he added. “I care about my crew and I simply really feel like there’s a lot good occurring I really feel just like the final two days have been simply targeted on the detrimental.”

That’s one thing St. Louis’s mom by no means did.

Her son discovered that lesson effectively.

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