Canadiens Hall of Famer Jacques Lemaire turns 65

OK so now we can say he’s officially retired! Happy 65th to Jacques LeMaire.

The Hall of Fame centre with the Canadiens, and current coach of the New Jersey Devils, was born on this day in 1945.

When you look at Lemaire’s statistics during his twelve-year career with the Montreal Canadiens, one thing that gets overshadowed was his defensive ability.

He was once referred to as Guy Lafleur’s defensive conscience during the Canadiens run of four Stanley Cups to close out the ‘70s.

His speed, anticipation and determination allowed Lafleur and linemate Steve Shutt to excel more offensively. Lemaire was the workhorse, winning the faceoffs, and digging pucks out of the scrums and getting the puck to his sharpshooting wingers.

In an interview with the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2007, Lemaire gave insight into the importance of a good defensive forward.

"We talked more about defence than offence. It was always there. I remember my first year playing for Toe Blake -- he was always talking about it.

On the bench, he'd be telling us if this guy or that guy didn't come back on defence and he would bench them. You hear people say their team needs more offence and forget defence.

That's crap! Defence is what we talked about. Somebody has to get back and help the defense. We knew we could score enough goals. We didn't want to give goals to the opponent because if they got a goal, we had to get two."

Lemaire’s defensive capabilities made the Canadiens top scoring line even harder to play against, and he never went a season, since his rookie debut in 1967, without scoring less than twenty goals in a season. He’s finish with 365 goals (7th in Habs history) and 469 assists (5th) for 835 points (7th) in 853 regular season games. Lemaire had a career plus/minus of +349.

During the playoffs, Lemaire brought it up another notch. His 139 career playoff points put him second behind Jean Beliveau. He played on eight Stanley Cup winners with the Canadiens.

He had three overtime playoff goals in his career including Cup clinchers in 1977 and 1979. Only five other players have scored more than one overtime Cup winner.

Not positive, but could be Lemaire’s Cup winner in the 1977 Finals.

His 1979 Cup winning goal would be his last in the NHL.

Lemaire retired from the NHL and spent two seasons as a player-coach in Switzerland. He later returned to become head coach with Montreal at the end of the 1983-84 season, taking the team to the Wales Conference Finals. The following season, Montreal finished first in their division, but lost in the second round of the playoffs.

That summer, Lemaire became a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player.

The pressure of coaching in Montreal grew too hard for Lemaire and the following season he moved to the front office to become the Assistant to the Managing Director for eight seasons. The Canadiens would claim two more Stanley Cups (1986, 1993) over that span.

He then took a position as head coach with the New Jersey Devils in 1993 and developed what is now known as the “Trap" System”. He would win the Jack Adams award as coach of the year that season.

Coupled with the goaltending of Martin Brodeur, the Devils won the Stanley Cup in 1995 and Lemaire remained with New Jersey until 1998.

He was hired as the first coach of the Minnesota Wild in 2000, winning a second Adams Award in 2003, remaining there until he stepped down until the spring of 2009, returning to New Jersey.

After one final season with the Devils, he retired as an NHL coach in April of 2010 with 588 wins and a .561 win percentage.

Latendresse vs. Pouliot: Let the Debates Begin!

Checking my Blackberry this morning, I caught on The Hockey News that Guillaume Latendresse had four points, for the Minnesota Wild, on Monday night and quickly tweeted how the debates over the Latendresse/Benoit Pouliot deal would open up.

No sooner had I posted it, when I got a reply from Topham of Lions in Winter.

He was already hard at work, as always,  putting up some comparative notes on his site.

At the same time, Robert Lefebvre of Habs Eyes on the Prize made some notes in his recap of recent Habs related news and findings.

I’ve excerpted the Latendresse/Pouliot portion below.

“Gui On Fire!

Former Hab Guillaume Latendresse, if you haven't heard, notched three assists and the game winner against Pittsburgh last night.

For the record, I love what I have seen of Benoit Pouliot thus far, and it looks early on like this will be a trade that benefits both players and teams. Still, there's that sour taste thing.

I won't go over this again, but for all the Guillaume bashers out there that gave me heat for three years while I stuck up for him....I told you so. Now, you can blame Gainey for having done what you wished he'd done all along.

The thing is, with the kids and prospects who show promise, they have to be given regular linemates to be assessed properly. This is how we find out whether they are top six forwards or whether their use is lower on a team's depth chart. Their mistakes have to be endured and their growth assisted.

The Canadiens were able to make this work with Higgins and Ryder in the past, turning both players into valuable assets regardless of how they were eventually handled. But that's another thing entirely.”

Eric Engels also jumped on the topic du jour on his blog at HockeyBuzz.

Finally the “Fab Four” of HabsInsideOut had some insight during their PuckCast into the trade and all agreed that a change of scenery has made the biggest of differences for both individuals.

So this week, let’s put it to a poll:

Who benefits the most from the deal?

Habs? Wild? Even trade, or give them 2-3 years to see who (team or player) benefits most.

Habs draft bust gets his NHL coaching shot with the Wild

Well they always say that those who cannot do, should teach.

Apparently that’s the way Todd Richards took after his NHL career failed to take off.

Picked in the second round by the Habs (33rd overall), Richards never made his debut until 1990 after his commitments to the University of Minnesota and being traded to the Hartford Whalers.

The former defenceman was only around for eight regular season games with four assists. In 11 playoff games he had three helpers.

He toiled in the IHL for nearly a decade.

But his coaching abilities were clearly there after his pro career.

He was an an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Admirals where his team reached the Calder Cup Finals twice, winning it in 2004.

Richard then took the head coaching position for the Penguins AHL affiliate Scranton-Wilkes/Barre in 2006.

He took the AHL Pens to the Calder Cup Final in 2007-08.

By the way, the guy who hired him to coach the mini-Pens is the new Wild GM Chuck Fletcher.

Do the math.

Richards served as an assistant last season with the San Jose Sharks.

The Edmonton Oilers were also apparently permitted to talk to Richards.