2023-06-21 05:00:00

BOUCHERVILLE – Stéphane Robidas has experienced so many twists and turns in the past year that he can hardly stop at the rumors of transactions related to the Canadian. If he were to lose some of his proteges on the blue line, he would understand the reasoning of his big bosses.

With the approach of the NHL draft, the Habs would take steps to select before the fifth place. Simple logic suggests that the Montreal clan would offer to give up defensive resources in this pact.

For the 2023-2024 season, Michael Matheson, Joel Edmundson, David Savard, Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj (Editor’s note: sorry for this huge oversight in the first version), Jordan Harris, Justin Barron, Johnathan Kovacevic and Chris Wideman have a CONTRACT. Logan Mailloux will want to mix the cards in training camp while Lane Hutson, Mattias Norlinder, Jayden Struble and William Trudeau will want to do the same eventually.

With 11 selections scheduled for Nashville next week, it would be surprising if CH did not add one or two defenders to their bank.

Thus, the possibility of seeing defenders leave under other skies does not prevent Robidas from sleeping.

“I’m not afraid, I don’t think too much regarding that. Obviously, you develop a bond with your defenders and you want them well. But it is sure that he risks having too much at some point with those who arrive and the choices that will follow. There is a business side with the exchanges and the salary cap. It’s not that you don’t like the person, you have a need and that’s what you have to pay for. As a player, once you understand that, it’s easier,” testified Robidas during the break of a symposium for hockey coaches at De Mortagne high school where he was the honorary president.

If the leaders of the Canadian have been forced, due to injuries, to turn extensively to rookies on the blue line, it is another rookie who will fuel the discussions at training camp.

The answer, Logan Mailloux, was too easy to award you any points. Robidas knows it well too, but he will not overstep his mandate.

“I’m here to help Logan with practices and stuff. I take care of the player, his progress and his evaluation. He has great skills, we realize it and the rest is not my department, “identified Robidas who will leave Martin St-Louis and especially Kent Hughes to deal with the other issues.

The Canadiens defenseman coach had too much on his plate to carefully watch his games with the London Knights.

“Logan was playing on another level and sometimes you say he doesn’t take care of his defensive game. But when he plays around 30 minutes, it’s a lot and a bit too much. They’re still humans, you can’t do everything so you have to be careful not to judge too quickly. We will see when he plays the real minutes in a real environment, ”said Robidas.

A year ago, almost to the day, Robidas had just accepted an assistant coaching position with the … Sherbrooke Phoenix. It was only a month later that St-Louis contacted him to offer him the jump to the NHL instead.

In short, Robidas had time to familiarize himself with the role of coach for only one season – in the U18AAA with the Cantonniers de Magog – before joining the NHL. Humble, Robidas therefore asked the opinion of his CH defenders on his work.

“I met each one individually and it wasn’t just me to them, but them to me. It’s important for me to know. That does not mean that they lived their rookie year like mine,” he noted, adding that the experience acquired by his players will not make the job easier since collective progress will be required.

“I am emotional and a brawler so I was crying”

The exclusion of the series of the Canadian will have, at the very least, allowed Robidas to follow the fabulous course of his son, Justin, with the Remparts of Quebec until the conquest of the Memorial cup.

As calm his voice may sound, Robidas was touched right to the heart.

Justin Robidas “Me, I am emotional and a brawler so I was crying”, confided with frankness the one who savored the whole while moving to Rimouski, Gatineau, Halifax and Kamloops.

Captain with the Val-d’Or Foreurs, Justin Robidas had to adjust following his arrival with the Remparts. In the end, Robidas is delighted with the ordeals overcome by his son.

“I especially think it’s a great life lesson that he can use for the rest of his life. In March, if you had told me that the Remparts would win, I would have said that you were in the field. You won’t win all the time in life and you won’t learn anything if it’s too easy, ”said Robidas, who had to work hard to establish himself in the NHL and play 937 games there.

“At a certain point, he questioned himself. He hadn’t signed his contract (with the Hurricanes) and it wasn’t working out the way he wanted. As a parent, it comes to get you because I want to help it, support it and protect it. You want him to be successful, not to experience failures. I know it won’t be easy. In a professional career, you are not always at the top of the mountain. You have to learn to deal with all this and I take my hat off to him, ”added the father.

Justin Robidas, who never wanted to play defenseman like his father, ended up convincing the Hurricanes to give him a contract by being an essential element in the playoffs with the Remparts.

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