The Montreal Canadiens are coming off a run to the Eastern Conference Final. They have a young core that most teams in the league would trade their left skate for. And now they’ve added a coach who has won two Stanley Cups as an assistant and who knows what it’s like to sit in the big chair.
Derek Lalonde is the new associate coach in Montreal. The Canadiens announced the hire Monday, and the move makes a lot of sense if you look at what this team needs most right now.
Let’s start with the obvious. Lalonde was the head coach in Detroit until things went sideways in December 2024. The Red Wings fired him after a 13-17-4 start, and that stung. But before that Detroit gig, he spent four years on Jon Cooper’s staff in Tampa Bay, working the penalty kill and running a defensive system that helped the Lightning win back-to-back titles in 2020 and 2021. That’s not nothing.
He bounced to Toronto as an assistant in June 2025, lasted a year, and got let go last month. That sounds worse than it actually is. Toronto’s 2025-26 season was a nightmare for everyone involved, and Lalonde wasn’t the problem. The Leafs’ penalty kill under him ranked eighth in the league at 81.2 percent. For a team that was drowning in high-profile failures, that unit was one of the few bright spots.
Lalonde replaces Trevor Letowski, who stepped away after five years. Letowski wanted more time with his family, per Sportsnet’s Eric Engels. That’s a clean exit for everyone.
Now here’s the part that should get Montreal fans feeling good. The Canadiens were solid last year, but their penalty kill was not. They finished 18th in the league at 78.2 percent. In a playoff series, that kind of number can kill you. Lalonde specializes in tightening that area up. He’s 53 years old, he’s from Brasher Falls, New York, and he’s been coaching since the late 1990s at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. The guy grinded through the ECHL, the USHL, and the AHL before he got his NHL shot. He’s not going to blow this.
The timing also matters. Montreal opens the 2026-27 season on September 29 against Toronto. That’s the same organization that just fired him. You think he won’t have that date circled? Coaches are human. They remember.
If Lalonde does what he did in Tampa and helps Montreal’s penalty kill jump 10 spots, he’ll get another head coaching opportunity fast. The Canadiens are a team built on young talent and speed. Add a disciplined defensive structure and you’ve got a squad that could be a real problem in the East for years.
The only question is whether Martin St. Louis gives him enough room to work. St. Louis is the guy who sets the tone in that room, but Lalonde has the resume to push back when it matters. That dynamic? It could be exactly what Montreal needs.
Leave a Comment