Canadiens’ St-Louis Knows There’s A Big Price To Pay

In Tuesday night’s game against the Minnesota Wild, Montreal Canadiens’ coach Martin St-Louis decided to use Jayden Struble over Arber Xhekaj. As a result, he was once again asked what went into that decision. It’s a question he’s been asked often over the last few years, but last night, he gave a bit of a different answer.

Of course, he highlighted the fact that Struble hadn’t played a lot in the last month, and the coach wants to keep his guys “fresh”, but he also explained:

Being a leader means knowing you’ll have to make decisions that will negatively affect people you care about. But that’s the role, it comes with the territory. The role comes with a price; you have to pay the price. Those are not easy conversations, but they start with the truth. Of course, the easiest thing for a coach is six defensemen who don’t get injured for 82 games, 12 forwards who don’t get injured for 82 games, and two goaltenders who don’t get injured for 82 games. Then there’s zero conversation, but that’s impossible. That’s the price that comes with the job; it’s an important job, and I take it to heart. It’s not easy; there’s not a single player who likes being told he’s not playing, but it’s the NHL.

– Martin St-Louis on the tough decisions

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St-Louis has been there as a player, he has been a healthy scratch, he knows how that feels, but he also knows that as a coach, he needs to make those kinds of calls despite how it will make the players affected feel. Much has been written about the fact that he will soon have to make some of those tough calls, and no one knows it better than him.

So far, he has been spared from cutting someone to insert Kirby Dach because Alexandre Texier is day-to-day, but when the Frenchman is ready to return, he’ll have to do it, and that’s not a responsibility he takes lightly.

However, when it’s a routine decision like inserting Struble to keep him fresh, it seems like there’s not much of a conversation, according to Arpon Basu, who reported on TSN that it was actually Juraj Slafkovsky who informed Xhekaj that he would have a night off when he joined him in the hot tub, shortly after the lineup was posted.