Jacques Martin is back in the NHL. On Friday morning, it was announced that Martin was hired as the assistant coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins. His last run in the coaching position came in 2011-12, when he was fired in early December from his head coaching position with the Montreal Canadiens. In the 2012-13 season, Martin was without a coaching job in the NHL and worked for TVA Sports.
Since the Penguins 2009 Stanley Cup Championship the team has been struggling to find a formula to get back to the top of the NHL mountain.
Jacques Martin joins assistant coaches Tony Granato and Todd Reirden and will not have a specific role on the bench. Instead, he will offer his word and give advice to head coach Dan Bylsma. With Martin’s extensive history as a coach, he will offer plenty of experience to the already experienced coaching staff.
In other words, Martin’s defensive-styled system will come in handy in a defensively anemic team.
“I think we’ve always looked at situations where we need to be able to get better at and improve upon. We certainly did that after this year,” Bylsma said, during a conference call. “We want someone with maybe a little bit different look at things from a different perspective.”
At 60 years old, Martin has coached a total of 1,294 games and has won 613 of them as a head coach in the NHL, spanning over 17 seasons. In 1999, Martin won the Jack Adams award for coach of the year. Martin has never won the Stanley Cup as a head coach, although he does have a ring as part of the Colorado Avalanche.
“I think I’ve always looked at coaching, whether I’m the head coach or an assistant coach as teamwork, working together,” said Martin. “Yes we have different responsibilities, but I’ve always felt that I wanted my assistant coaches to be strong-minded, strong people that express themselves.”
One way Martin can help the team instantly is with their defensive side of the game. A young player like Kris Letang could benefit greatly from learning how to play more defensively while not giving up his offensive touch during the process. Martin has worked with and helped progress young defenseman like Chris Phillips and Wade Redden in Ottawa, so Ray Shero and company hope Martin can achieve the same results with Letang and the rest of the defensive core of the team.
“From the outside, from coaching against him, there’s no doubt that he has tremendous vision, has tremendous offensive skill,” said Martin about Letang. “I think like many other young defencemen I think it’s moving without the puck, it’s improving, playing maybe more of a controlled game.”
The good news for the Penguins and their fans is that Martin will not have complete control of the team as a head coach. Martin will feel more at ease behind the bench, especially with no specific assigned role, so he will really just be an experienced ex-head coach who is offering his advice to Bylsma. His experience alone will contribute to an already outstanding hockey club in Pittsburgh and his defensive-minded style could help turn around the club and help them reach the Stanley Cup once again. At the same time, we saw what happened in Washington when the Capitals attempted to play a more defensive-styled hockey and fell flat.
In Pittsburgh, there is a nice mix between young talented defensemen who are either breaking in or on the rise as top-caliber defensemen and a few veterans who will help pave the way for the young ones and teach them the ropes. With someone like Martin giving his word and using his experience, look for the Pittsburgh Penguins defense to be near-impossible to penetrate.
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