Any coach placed in a development role will talk about putting players in a position to succeed.
The Montreal Canadiens hired Pascal Vincent to be the head coach of the AHL’s Laval Rocket on Tuesday, replacing Jean-François Houle after he left the organization to coach his alma mater, Clarkson University, and the natural inclination is to look at where Vincent came from most recently.
However, evaluating Vincent’s ability to take on this role in Laval for the Canadiens based solely on what he did as head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets last season is not entirely fair, because when looked at through the lens of a development coach, Vincent was never placed in a position to succeed in Columbus.
He got the head coach job four days before training camp was set to begin when Mike Babcock was fired before coaching a single day for the organization. General manager Jarmo Kekäläinen was also fired in February after the season went off the rails.
Vincent’s handling of some of Columbus’ young players last season, though, remains fair game, because there were some puzzling, controversial decisions made from a development standpoint, particularly when it came to prized prospects like Kent Johnson, Adam Fantilli and David Jiříček.
A lot of eyebrows were raised around the league about how those players, and others, were handled in Columbus last season. So, questions are somewhat justified about whether Vincent was an appropriate man for a job in Laval that will be stocked with important Canadiens prospects and is likely to be one of the younger teams in the AHL next season.
But coaching in the NHL and coaching in the AHL are two different animals, and when Vincent was given an opportunity to address some of those controversial decisions on the Blue Jackets’ top young players last season, Vincent made sure to point that out.
He understands the difference between an AHL and NHL coach and fully accepts that his mandate in Laval is far different than the one he had in Columbus, while also acknowledging he made some mistakes last season that he hopes will provide lessons he can use in Laval this season.
“Well, it’s two different leagues,” Vincent said Tuesday, a few hours after being announced as the new Rocket head coach. “I don’t like to compare it because I like to think that I grow every year. I learned a ton last year. It was a season where I learned a lot, but the organization was in a different place and I got the job four days before training camp, not much time to prepare. It was a young team, but it’s the NHL. And in the NHL, you have to win hockey games. But I think, if you want to look at my track record, going back to my (Manitoba) Moose years is a better way to look at it.”
Fair enough, let’s do that.
Vincent was head coach of the Manitoba Moose, the Winnipeg Jets’ AHL affiliate, from 2016 to 2021. Over that time, he graduated players such as Kyle Connor, Jack Roslovic, Mason Appleton, Jansen Harkins, Logan Stanley, Tucker Poolman, Dylan Samberg and Cole Perfetti to the NHL, among several others.
He also graduated Johnathan Kovacevic, the defenceman the Canadiens plucked off waivers from the Jets two years ago and recently traded to the New Jersey Devils for a fourth-round draft pick. Back in October, when Vincent was named head coach of the Blue Jackets, Kovacevic gave his thoughts on his former coach.
“I think it was a matter of when, not if he would be a head coach in the NHL,” Kovacevic said then. “I think he’s an amazing guy and such a dedicated coach, too, who’s paid his dues, took the long road to get here. But for me, having him in the AHL, he had a great influence on me. He established discipline, work ethic, team culture and just an environment where everyone can feel like they can be their best self. So that culture he established with us, especially that second year, that COVID year where there was a lot going on, we always could rely on each other and he was a really good facilitator of that where I felt like we just had a really good brotherhood there and he was the leader, for sure.”
That’s a pretty strong endorsement of what the Canadiens want to establish in Laval, not only graduating players to the NHL but building a culture that nurtures, encourages and even accelerates that development in a positive way. It’s worth noting that in those five years with the Moose, Vincent reached the playoffs only once, but he also graduated all of those players to the NHL and fostered that environment. That’s really the essential point of his job in Laval, far more so than icing a winning product, though that is also important.
In Columbus, it was the other way around.
“The American league is different,” Vincent said. “It’s keeping an eye on tomorrow while we develop today and how can we bring our players to a place where they perform at the NHL level. The goal is to win the Stanley Cup. That’s the ultimate goal, to win the Stanley Cup in Montreal. If we win the Calder Cup in Laval in the meantime, great, that’s a bonus. And we’re going to be thinking about it, we’re going to be talking about it. We want to create a winning environment in Laval. But the goal, the ultimate goal, is winning the Stanley Cup and how we’re going to help our players. If they’re being called up, when they’re being called up, how are we going to prepare them properly so they can help the Montreal Canadiens?
“So what happened in Columbus, what I can tell you is I’ve learned a ton. Did I make any mistakes? Of course I did. I made some mistakes, but I’m learning, I’m growing. Even though I’ve been coaching 30 years, it’s a never-ending process to learn and to grow and to make mistakes and not to repeat them. So it was a great year in that regard.”
Vincent spoke of the great relationship between his coaching staff and Paul Maurice’s staff in Winnipeg, and how they remained in close contact, something he felt was more difficult in Columbus with the AHL affiliate in Cleveland because it was two hours away. The Jets and the Moose share the same building in Winnipeg. The Canadiens and the Rocket are obviously a short drive apart in Montreal and Laval. Vincent has already had an introductory conversation with Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, but he anticipates creating a similar dynamic with him to the one he had with Maurice in Winnipeg.
“I think the relationship between the two teams, I see it as a big coaching staff, the Montreal Canadiens and the Laval Rocket,” Vincent said. “Making sure we’re a big staff, we’re on the same page, push each other, obviously ask questions, but at the end of the day they make the decisions, and our job is to execute the plan. And I’m on board, 100 percent.”
Much like St. Louis experienced just about every role as a player, from going on waivers to being a fourth-liner to being a Hart Trophy-winner and being inducted into the Hall of Fame, Vincent having coached at the junior, AHL and NHL levels gives him a good dose of perspective as well on how to progress from each of those levels.
Another important piece of experience Vincent brings from his time with the Moose is coaching young AHL teams. In his five years there, with few exceptions, his top players were his younger players and not AHL veterans, which partly explains the lack of playoff success. It is very difficult to be a competitive team in the AHL when relying on youth. The teams that go far in the Calder Cup playoffs are generally led by one or two or more AHL stars, players who will never play in the NHL but make a good living dominating in the AHL. The Moose didn’t really have those guys when Vincent was there, and the Rocket won’t have too many of them, either.
Vincent’s predecessor, Houle, spoke at the end of the Rocket season of the importance of picking the right types of AHL veterans, the ones who will accept that the team has a developmental mandate and will therefore accept ceding time on the power play or offensive zone faceoffs to younger players who might not necessarily be as well equipped right now to play those roles as the veterans are.
The Rocket team Vincent is taking over will look considerably different than the one Houle coached last season. Among the players who have left Laval are forwards Lias Andersson, Filip Cederqvist, Arnaud Durandeau, Riley McKay and Mitchell Stephens, defencemen Olivier Galipeau, Mattias Norlinder and Tobie Paquette-Bisson, and goaltender Strauss Mann. Among those possibly coming in are forwards Vincent Arsenault, Alex Beaucage, Owen Beck, Laurent Dauphin, Filip Mešár, Luke Tuch and Florian Xhekaj, defencemen Adam Engström, Lane Hutson, Joshua Jacobs, David Reinbacher, Vincent Sévigny and Tyler Wotherspoon, and goaltender Connor Hughes.
This list is not quite exhaustive, but it gives a sense of how much has changed in one offseason, how much younger the Rocket might potentially be, and how much more important Vincent’s role will be in developing the more promising prospects on that incoming list.
This is an incredibly important year in Laval, and while the Canadiens were somewhat blindsided by the sudden departure of Houle to Clarkson, Vincent becoming available at around the same time and wanting to come coach in his hometown – he said the Laval job was the only AHL position he would have considered – should be seen as a good bounce for the organization.
Vincent is correct in saying that he should not be judged solely on his one season as Columbus head coach, but more so on his overall body of work over 30 consecutive years as a hockey coach.
And that track record suggests the Canadiens got the right person for the job.
(Photo of Pascal Vincent: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)
