Patrick WilliamsTheAHL.com Features Writer
Life in Montreal. For members of the Montreal Canadiens, it was intense. Their AHL affiliate, the Laval Rocket, shares the same enthusiasm. Rockets players who play at nearby Bell Plaza must also undergo intense scrutiny. It's a special, even passionate, experience. A two-part series will look at the experience from both a playing and coaching perspective. Part 1 can be found here.
Pascal Vincent He understood the job before taking it.
Vincent was named head coach of the Laval Rocket on July 16, 2024, and he has met all the requirements of the position on and off the ice.
NHL experience? Yes. He takes on the head coaching job after spending seven seasons as a coach with the Columbus Blue Jackets and Winnipeg Jets.
Familiar with the AHL and the ins and outs of the league? Absolutely. He coached the Manitoba Moose for five seasons and received the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award as the league's outstanding coach in his first season.
Any idea what he'll face when he joins the Montreal Canadiens? certainly. He grew up in Laval, a city just across the river from Montreal and part of the metropolitan area. He is bilingual and articulate and can handle all the public and media responsibilities of working in the Montreal market. He even served as a head coach in Montreal. He spent three seasons as general manager and head coach of the Montreal Juniors of what is now the Quebec Maritime Junior Hockey League. In fact, his coaching career began in 1994 as a 21-year-old QMJHL assistant coach in Saint Jean, just a short drive from Montreal.
Vincent has had success on both fronts with the Rockets so far. He develops talent. Detailed and precise, his players will be ready to show up at the Bell Center when the NHL recall rolls around.
He won. Last season he led the team to the best record in the AHL regular season, with a record of 48 wins, 19 draws, 3 draws and 2 losses. That's a .701 hockey score, the second-highest scoring rate by a Habs affiliate in AHL history. The Rockets made it to two consecutive playoff rounds and reached the Eastern Conference Finals. Adding another Pieri Memorial Award to his resume. This season he led the Rockets to win the North Division championship. He will lead the North Division in next week's AHL All-Star Classic hosted by BMO.
Vincent spent 10 seasons working at the NHL and AHL levels in hockey-dominated Winnipeg. Columbus is getting as much attention as any NHL city would get. But this is the Montreal market. Habs. and the future of Habs, especially as president Jeff Gorton and general manager Kent Hughes Came to town and made improving player development a priority for the organization.
This is the future life guide for Canadians, many of whom are in their twenties and have only a year or two of professional experience (if that). He has sent players to the habitat to fill in as needed. Samuel Bryce, Owen Baker, Jared Davidson, Adam Engstrom, Jacob Fowler, Joshua Roy and Florian Chekay They have both played against the Canadiens this season.
Part of playing for the Rockets is learning about the organization's rich history at the NHL and AHL levels. Photos and artwork line the Laval dressing room and the surrounding corridors at Place Bell. The iconic photo is Maurice “Rocket” Richardteam namesake, Boston Bruins goaltender Jim Henry Handshakes appear on facility walls early on. But it’s not just Canadiens history. Laval's AHL seniors are equally focused and focused on those walls.
And the Rockets, which Vincent manages day-to-day, already have a rich history long before coming to Laval.
It's been nearly half a century since the Canadiens last had an AHL affiliate in such close proximity. Montreal Voyageurs – A team briefly led by the late Ken Dryden – Founded in 1969 at the Montreal Forum. But the team withdrew after two seasons and headed to Halifax, making the AHL's first appearance in Atlantic Canada. There, the Nova Scotia Voyageurs became one of the AHL's powerhouses in the 1970s, winning three Calder Cups, helping fuel the Canadiens dynasty of the late 1970s, winning four consecutive Stanley Cups, and laying the foundation for the AHL's future in the Maritimes. like Guy Carbonneau, Larry Robinson, Yvonne Lambert and Gilles Lupin They both apprenticed with the Vees and won Stanley Cup honors in Montreal after graduation.
Depart from Halifax to Sherbrooke, where late-season additions will be available Patrick Roy and Stephen Richer Helped the team win the 1985 Calder Cup in their first season. When Montreal pulled its AHL affiliate from Sherbrooke in 1990, it began a journey that would span more than two decades. Over the years, the Fredericton Canadiens, Quebec Citadels, Hamilton Bulldogs and St. John's IceCaps have all contributed their share of strengths, successes and memories. Carey Price In 2007, Hamilton won the Calder Trophy as a rookie, the final step on his way to Habs greatness.
But ultimately the Habs decided to take their prospect home.
Place Bell is a 10,000-plus-seat stadium with amenities befitting an NHL facility, from idea to drawing board to shovel. With a brand new building on the horizon, the Habs elected to move the Ice Caps to Laval for the 2017-18 season.
However, two last-place finishes in the North Division and pandemic-related disruptions meant the new club took nearly five years to play its first playoff game. But that wait paid off when the team truly found its presence in 2022, a solid but mostly unknown Laval club that finished third in the North Division. Once the Calder Cup playoffs rolled around, that team was hot. Then they got hotter and hotter, making it all the way to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, knocking off Syracuse and the Rochester Americans before losing to the Springfield Thunderbirds. With the Canadiens in trouble and interest turning to the young talent the club might have, Rockets fans packed Bell Plaza night after night that spring.
However, after two seasons at or near the bottom of the North Division, Canadiens management hired Vincent as Laval's new head coach. Since the front office of Gorton and Hughes arrived midway through the 2021-22 season to begin a major (and perhaps just as important) revamp of the organization on the ice, there's been the next step in the constant evolution in and around the Canadiens.
Vincent is a key hire for a top-notch original six-man organization trying to build a blue-chip operation in the AHL. The Canadiens wanted a teacher like Vincent and have continued to add young talent to the Laval roster.
But there’s another quality to Vincent that works very well in a market with passionate fans, intensive media coverage and constant attention. He spoke softly. Calm. even. No panic. Super quick to attribute LaVar’s success to others throughout the Montreal organization.
These qualities provide a soothing contrast amidst all the noise and potential distractions of hockey players in the Montreal and Laval markets. Despite all the noise, Vincent's message and teachings quickly resonated with his new players. That may be even more important considering the success the team has had since his arrival.
“Last year,” Vincent said, “I think there weren't a lot of expectations and this team surprised a lot of people. I think this year, the team is waiting for us. So, we have a lot of resilience.”
Montreal management has made sure to build a strong leadership group with LaVar and give it a clear mission: to be another source of help for developing prospects. But keeping that plan and following it every day is part of Vincent's daily job description. It can be easy for any player or coach to stray from a developmental perspective.
“[The players] Understand the mission,” said the head coach, whose job it is to reinforce that understanding. “They understand what we're doing. They understand we're here to create a winning environment and win as many games as possible, but it's going to be about development and that's their understanding and they're a part of that. Our children are developing very well. “
Those skills will be tested again this weekend. The Cleveland Monsters will play two important North Division games on Friday and Saturday. The two teams met last year in the North Division semifinals. The Monsters are typically hard-nosed, hard-working guys and have a 6-0-1-0 run. Once spring arrives, maybe another Calder Cup playoff game is on the horizon. As always, tickets for both games are limited. As the Canadiens begin competing in the NHL Winter Olympics, the Rockets will capture the attention of the entire market.
This weekend is going to be intense. Vincent's job, as always, is to lead his players through all that noise.
About two decades in the American Hockey League, TheAHL.com feature writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor to SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. In 2016, he received the AHL's James H. Ellery Memorial Award for outstanding coverage of the league.
