Tony Marinaro’s Exclusive Interview With Habs GM Kent Hughes

One of the earlier parts discussed in the interview was related to how Hughes and his management group named Nick Suzuki captain of the Canadiens at just the age of 23. While Hughes and his staff saw the leadership in Suzuki, he actually mentioned that former Habs captain Shea Weber, who once came to town to meet with Habs management, told Hughes that the Habs have their captain in Suzuki. This was very interesting because for the first time ever we as fans finally got the inside on how Suzuki became captain and how even the team’s former leader had a chance to put in his word for the next captain of the Canadiens.

Marinaro and Hughes talked about the Habs making Juraj Slafkovsky the 1st overall pick in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft, discussing the decision to play him. Marinaro asked Hughes if the Habs ever questioned their decision that they made to keep him in Montreal his first season rather than return him to Europe or the AHL.

Hughes said that his biggest worry was that having him play at a lower level would allow him to get away from needing to work on the things that they wanted him to develop into the forward they were hoping for, which meant the NHL was the best option for him to learn better. He believes that development is different for every player, and they felt that at the time, Slafkovsky developing on a rebuilding team in the NHL was the right decision, whereas for others the AHL is better. Nonetheless, he admitted that there were some nights where he felt that they maybe made a mistake in how they were developing him; however, they stayed the course, and it has worked out for the better, as Slafkovsky is now one of the most dominant power forwards in the world today.

Marinaro also got Hughes to give his thought process on hiring Martin St. Louis as the head coach, considering how inexperienced he was as a coach. Hughes said the reason he hired St. Louis was due to both his hockey intellect and personality. He and his staff felt that having a player-coach like St. Louis would work well for a rebuild, as they needed someone who could communicate well with young players. Fast forward over four years later, and St. Louis’ coaching abilities have helped the Habs make the playoffs two years in a row as the youngest teams in average age to ever do so. It’s clear that Hughes and his management were two steps ahead by starting the rebuild with a coach that needed to develop himself in the process.

One of the last things Marinaro and Hughes talked about was the trade deadline that resulted in no trades. The Habs GM explained that there were a couple of trades that were in the works that just fell through due to a number of things before the deadline. Hughes also made sure to mention that the main goal was never to just get better for this season but also to make them better for the future, as the contender window is just opening now. He does admit that it’s on him for not getting anything done, but the right move just wasn’t there for them to make that made sense. Regarding that trade that was mentioned in the past, Hughes said he couldn’t really go into any details on what exactly happened, as it takes two to trade, so he can’t answer the exact reasoning behind it.

Overall, Marinaro did a great job getting some details of what is going on behind the scenes with the Canadiens regarding various topics from Hughes. It really allows Habs fans to see just what the GM’s thought process is behind the moves and decisions that he makes to improve this team.

If you haven’t seen the full interview, check it out below.