Patrick WilliamsFeatures Writer for TheAHL.com
Life in Montreal. It’s intense for a member of the Montreal Canadiens. Some of that love extends to their AHL affiliate, the Laval Rocket. Playing outside the nearby Place Bell, the Rockets’ players must face intense scrutiny. It is a special experience, if it burns. The two-part series will explore the experience from both a playing and coaching perspective. Part 1 can be found here.
Pascal Vincent he understood the job before he took it.
Named as the head coach of the Laval Rocket head coach on July 16, 2024, Vincent met all the requirements of the post on the rink and away from it.
NHL experience? Yes. He led the Columbus Blue Jackets as head coach after spending seven seasons in coaching roles with both the organization and the Winnipeg Jets.
Familiarity with the AHL and the details that come with this league? Definitely. He helped the Manitoba Moose for five seasons, receiving the Louis AR Pieri Memorial Award as the league’s top coach in his first campaign.
Do you know what he didn’t have coming to the Montreal Canadiens organization? Of course. He grew up in Laval, a city separated from Montreal by just a river and a large part of the city. Bilingual and well-spoken, she was able to handle all the public and media responsibilities that come with working in the Montreal market. He previously worked in Montreal as a head coach. He spent three seasons as general manager and head coach with Montreal Junior of the now Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. In fact, his start in coaching, back in 1994, came when he took on the role of an assistant in the QMJHL as a 21-year-old coach with Saint Jean, just a short drive from Montreal.
Vincent has won two matches with the Rocket so far. You develop talent. Detailed and accurate, his players will appear at the Bell Center prepared if and when that NHL recall.
And you win. Last season he led them to the AHL’s best regular season record, going 48-19-3-2. That was .701 hockey, the second-best field goal percentage by a Habs franchise in AHL history. The Rockets went on to make two rounds of the playoffs and reach the Eastern Conference finals. Add another Pieri Memorial Award to his resume. He has another winning team this season with the Rockets who topped the North Division. He will lead the North Division in the AHL All-Star Classic presented by BMO next week.
Vincent had worked 10 seasons at the NHL and AHL levels in Winnipeg, where hockey reigned supreme. Columbus came with the scrutiny that any NHL city comes with. But this is the Montreal market. The Habs. And the future of the Habs, especially in the era when the president Jeff Gorton and general manager Kent Hughes he came to town and made improving player development a priority for the organization.
Such are the life expectancies of Canadians, many of whom have never reached their twenties and have only a year or two of work experience, if that. He sent players to the Habs to fill in as needed. Samuel Blais, Owen Beck, Jared Davidson, Adam Engström, Jacob Fowler, Joshua Roy again Florian Xhekaj all played games with the Canadiens this season.
Part of playing for the Rockets is understanding the organization’s rich history at both the NHL and AHL levels. Photographs and artwork line the hallways in and around Laval’s dressing room at Place Bell. Thumbnail image of Maurice “Rocket” Richardthe name of the team, and the goaltender of the Boston Bruins Jim Henry handshakes began to remain on the walls of the institution. But it’s not just Canadiens history. Laval’s AHL predecessors have been focused and focused on those same walls.
And the Rocket, the team that Vincent manages on a daily basis, had a rich history before arriving in Laval.
The Canadiens organization has cycled through a few stops and it’s been almost a century since they last had their own AHL organization nearby. Montreal Voyageurs – a team led briefly by the late Ken Dryden – established operations at the Montreal Forum in 1969. But the team folded after two seasons and headed to Halifax, giving the AHL its first presence in Atlantic Canada. There, the Nova Scotia Voyageurs became one of the AHL’s powerhouses of the 1970s, winning the Calder Cup three times, helping fuel what would become the Canadiens’ late-70s dynasty that captured four straight Stanley Cup titles, and setting the AHL up for future growth in the Maritimes. Liked by Guy Carbonneau, Larry Robinson, Yvon Lambert again Gilles Lupien all of them were counted among the players who studied with the Vees and graduated to the glory of the Stanley Cup in Montreal.
From Halifax on to Sherbrooke, where the latest season additions Patrick Roy again Stéphane Richer he helped the team win the Calder Cup in 1985 in his first season. When Montreal moved its AHL affiliate to Sherbrooke in 1990, it began a long odyssey that spanned more than two decades. The Fredericton Canadiens, Quebec Citadelles, Hamilton Bulldogs and St. John’s IceCaps have all provided their share of benefits, successes and memories over the years. Carey Price he led Hamilton to the Calder Cup as a rookie in 2007 in his final move before moving on to the Habs.
But in the end the Habs decided to bring their hopes home.
Place Bell, a 10,000-plus-seat arena with amenities to match an NHL venue, is going from concept to board to shovels on the ground. With a brand new building on the way, the Habs have opted to move the IceCaps to Laval for the 2017-18 season.
However, a bottom-placed finish in the North Division and pandemic-related disruptions meant the new club went almost five years before playing their first play-off game. But that wait paid off when the franchise really found its footing in 2022 with a strong, but never-ending Laval club that finished third in the North Division. That team got hot when the Calder Cup Playoffs came. They then got hot and made it all the way to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, knocking out the Syracuse Crunch and the Rochester Americans before finally falling to the Springfield Thunderbirds. As the Canadiens struggled and interest turned to what the club might have in the way of young talent, each night that day in the spring saw Rocket fans fill Place Bell.
After two seasons at the bottom of the North Division, however, Canadiens management brought in Vincent as their new Laval coach. It was the next step in the ever-increasing changes that have been taking place in and around the Canadiens since the management team of Gorton and Hughes arrived midway through the 2021-22 season to begin reshaping the organization — and perhaps most importantly — off the ice.
Vincent arrived as a big-time rental fit for a premiership Original Six organization trying to put together a blue-chip AHL operation. The Canadiens wanted a teacher like Vincent and continued to fill Laval’s roster with young talent, too.
But Vincent also had another quality, working very well in a market with passionate fans, intense media coverage, and constant focus. He speaks softly. Calm down. I mean. It doesn’t make sense. Too soon to credit others in the entire Montreal organization for Laval’s success.
Those qualities provide a soothing contrast between all that noise and potential distractions for a hockey player in the markets of Montreal — and Laval. Despite all the noise, Vincent’s message and teaching quickly connected with his young players. That may be even more important given the team’s success since his arrival.
“Last year,” said Vincent, “I don’t think there were many expectations, and this team surprised a lot of people. I think this year, teams are waiting for us. So, there’s a lot of resilience.”
Montreal management made sure to put in a strong leadership team with Laval with a clear mandate: be another source of help to improve prospects. But keeping that plan in place and sticking to it day in and day out is part of Vincent’s daily job description. It would be easy for any player or coach alike to stray slightly from that vision of development.
“[The players] to understand the goal,” said the head coach whose job is to strengthen that understanding.” “They understand what we’re doing. They understand that we’re here to create a winning environment and win as many games as possible, but it’s going to be about progress, and that’s what they understand and are a part of. Our kids are developing very well.”
This weekend those skills will be put to the test again. The Cleveland Monsters are in town for two important North Division games on Friday and Saturday. These teams played to a draw last week in the North Division Semifinals. Monsters are hard-nosed, active regulars who run 6-0-1-0. Perhaps another Calder Cup Playoff game is on the horizon when spring arrives. As always, tickets for both games are limited. As the Canadiens begin the NHL’s Winter Olympics break, the Rockets will have the attention of the entire market.
This weekend is going to be intense. Vincent’s job, as always, will be to lead his players through all that noise.
In the American Hockey League for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams and currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor to SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for the league’s top scorer in 2016.
