HabsWorld.net -- 

The Canadiens kick off a West Coast road trip tonight in Calgary but will be without head coach Martin St. Louis indefinitely as he has taken a leave of absence for family reasons.

St. Louis is in his second full season with Montreal after joining the team on an interim basis in the 2021-22 season.  The team has played to a 70-94-21 mark under his tutelage thus far but while they have a losing record this season, they’ve been considerably more competitive as their rebuild continues on.

Trevor Letowski has assumed the interim head coaching role in St. Louis’ absence.  While this will be his first time running a bench in the pros, it’s not his first time as a head coach as he worked in that capacity for parts of six seasons in the OHL with Sarnia and Windsor.

Montreal’s other two assistants have a much more limited track record as Alex Burrows has never been a head coach before while Robidas has just one year of coaching experience under his belt at the Triple-A level in Quebec.  Assuming that they didn’t want to pull from their coaching staff in Laval, Letowski was the most logical option on their staff to take on the interim head coaching role.