Barely 24 hours after Derek Lalonde was dismissed from his assistant coach role by the Toronto Maple Leafs, Sportsnet’s Eric Engels reported that the 53-year-old was being hired by the Montreal Canadiens in the same role. He also revealed that Lalonde would replace Trevor Letowski, who has decided to leave the bench to spend more time with his family. While Engels stopped short of saying which role Letowski would play going forward, he added that the organization wants to keep him in the fold.
Letowski’s departure from Martin St-Louis’ staff is not good news for the Habs. After all, he was St-Louis’ second-in-command, and the rare times the bench boss had to leave the team, he was the one left in charge. When Eric Raymond left the coaching staff last season, it seemed to hit the bench boss particularly hard. Hopefully, this one stings less since it’s Letowski’s own decision.
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As for the new arrival, Lalonde has spent the last season on Craig Berube’s staff in Toronto with a Leafs side reeling from Mitch Marner’s departure that they just couldn’t shake off, on their way to missing the playoffs. Prior to that, he spent part of three seasons behind the Detroit Red Wings’ bench as head coach, winning 89 of 198 games, missing the playoffs in the two seasons he completed.
While recent results have been far from impressive, he did serve as an assistant coach under Jon Cooper with the Tampa Bay Lightning for four seasons, during which the team won two Stanley Cups. That’s a total of 608 games spent behind an NHL bench, which is more than the Canadiens’ bench boss has had (365 games). Lalonde has also coached in the AHL, the ECHL, the USHL, and in the NCAA. He’s therefore an experienced addition to the coaching staff who’s been behind the scenes for three divisional rivals, and it will be interesting to see what role he plays, since he will have some big shoes to fill in Letowski’s.
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