Do The Habs Need To Add An Experienced Coach?

As it stands, the Canadiens are playing a man-to-man system where the players need to stay on their man at all times. Unfortunately, with this strategy, players can easily get caught chasing the puck in their own zone. This has led to many goals against this season, which is something that the Habs can’t let keep happening. The best solution seems like they will need a more experienced coach on their staff who would be willing to be either an assistant or associate coach who can help St. Louis come up with new defensive systems that fit better with the players on the team.

The Habs added Roger Grillo as a team consultant last year, but as he has been sick after being diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the season, it seems as if he’s not around as much, and it is taking a toll on the team. The way things have gone with the defensive situations of the Habs, it seems like Grillo had a great impact on the team last year.

Honestly, as good a motivator as St. Louis is, he cannot sometimes strategize the right plays for his team when it comes to defence. That actually makes sense, as he was always more of an offensive player, and he seemed to try to balance that out by bringing Trevor Letowski and Stephane Robidas, but neither of them had NHL coaching experience either. What St. Louis needed to add was someone who has 20+ years of coaching experience who could be around regularly.  This can be someone to help come up with better defensive strategies that will work with more consistency on the Habs.

There has to be someone who can come work with St. Louis and help him deal with the defensive part of the game. It could be another guy from St. Louis’ past, like Roger Grillo, but also someone who can be more involved alongside him. It may be harsh to say, but Robidas’ job as assistant coach should be on the hot seat with how the man-to-man is not working as well as the penalty kill hasn’t been that great of late. A guy with more coaching experience can easily help the Habs’ defence turn their game around, just as long as there is a better system in place for coaching the game in the defensive zone.

Many people may say that this is on St. Louis, but as the head coach, his job is to be a communicator and help out his assistants with their strategies. Not to mention, St. Louis’ work seems to be tasked with handling the power play duties as well. Therefore, the responsibility of the defensive side goes to one of his assistants, and given Robidas was an NHL defenseman, he is likely the one who needs to be held accountable for these issues.

The Habs currently lack maturity in their game as the youngest team in the league, but at the same time the coaching staff is very inexperienced and needs an NHL coach that has at least 10 years of experience. The experience doesn’t need to be head coach; even a longtime NHL assistant who focused on defence would work.

Do you think the Habs should make a coaching shakeup to fix their defensive woes?