Lightning Round: Martin St Louis back in the NHL

The Montreal Canadiens fired their head coach, Dominique Ducharme, yesterday after a 7-1 loss to the Arizona Coyotes (among many, many other losses). Ducharme, who was in the first of a three year contract worth $1.7 million per season, took over from Claude Julien, who is still getting paid $5 million by the Habs in the last year of his contract that ended prematurely.

Martin St. Louis

It only took a couple hours for the Habs to find their interim replacement, however, as they called on Tampa Bay Lightning franchise legend Martin St. Louis to be their head coach for the rest of the season and potentially beyond. Mr. Leg Day was last in the NHL in 2015, playing for the New York Rangers under assistant GM at the time Jeff Gorton. Gorton is now the VP of hockey ops (aka running the show) in Montreal and has brought MSL in again.

In terms of MSL’s actual qualifications or experience as a coach, there’s not much. He’s coached his son in AAA U13 in Connecticut for the last few years, and worked as a special power play consultant for the Columbus Blue Jackets during the Tortorella years, but now makes the big jump all the way to the NHL. MSL’s playing resume speaks for itself and I think the biggest thing the Habs want to get from him is a lot of time with Cole Caufield, who was rushed to the NHL out of college. Caufield has split time between the NHL and AHL this season, and only has three goals in 36 games across the two leagues to his name.

St. Louis’ current assistants are Alex Burrows, Luke Richardson, and Luke Letowski.

Vincent Lecavalier

There has been a lot of reports among the french media that St. Louis won’t be the only former Bolt making his way into the Habs organization. One reporter in particular said to expect Vincent Lecavalier to be announced as assistant GM:

“I am told that Vincent Lecavalier will be appointed assistant to GM Kent Hughes at the #CH. We are talking about an announcement TOMORROW. #Habs #Canadiens”

However, another reporter got a hold of Vinny, who wants to stop the rumors and says he’s happy staying in Florida!

Vincent Lecavalier to @LangloisMario on a possible hiring in Montreal:

“I stay in Florida. [... ] I’m fine here. I didn’t get there in my head. [... ] I want to stop the rumours.”

On the assumption that he is appointed assistant GM on Thursday:

“That’s not true.”

So there you have it, from the man himself, Vinny has chosen Florida.

Lightning Links

Seattle Kraken and women’s hockey reporter — who you’ve definitely seen in these morning links before — Marisa Ingemi was suddenly fired by the Seattle Times after only a little under six months in the new job. The Times did not give an explanation as to why Marisa was fired. After the firing, 70 members of the Seattle Times staff signed a petition with their union to find out.

“Ingemi, several staffers at the Times told Defector, was well liked by colleagues in the newsroom. Based on reader response to Barrett’s tweet, it’s safe to assume that readers liked her work too. Newsroom staffers at the Times confirmed that her stories did good traffic.”

“I just want people to know that I was not warned about this and I didn’t do anything wrong,” Ingemi said. “If there was legitimately a problem, I wish they would have told me that. I would have taken it very seriously and my track record shows that. To this very moment, I do not know what I did to cause being fired.”

Shoutout to JT Brown, who’s making waves in the broadcasting industry!

And last, Alexey Lipanov is playing with the Texas Stars now after coming up from the ECHL.