Jacques Martin

[Spez]

I didn't become a sens fans until after the 2003 run and before that I was a red wings fan. Looking back at the team from the late 1990s-2004 the one big question I had is why did the team keep Martin for as long as they did? Sure it was easy in hindsight to say to look at 2002 and 2003 when the team finally broke through and advanced in the playoffs. However, I look at 99-2001 when the team got knocked out in the first round all 3 times and only went 2-12.

3 straight playoff losses (2 sweeps, 1 6 gamer) like that would normally get a coach canned but is there a particular reason why the organization kept him? Sometimes I wonder looking back if a coach was what the team needed to win a cup. You can point to goaltending but one thing I kept hearing about in old threads was how much Martin was out-coached, especially vs Quinn.

Do some of you fans think a new coach could have helped put the team over the top or was really goaltending the piece they were missing from winning a cup in that era?

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[Laphroaig]

I never thought goaltending was the problem on those teams. Your best players have to produce at some point. Alfredsson scored 3 goals and 8 points in those 14 games while Yashin sat out one season while scoring no goals and adding 1 assist in the two four game sweeps. Marian Hossa contributed 1 goal and 2 assists in the 14 games in question yet people still insist the issue was goaltending.

In hindsight I guess you'd have to question the coaching.

 

[Lehnsanity]

Nope

 

[L'Aveuglette]

Yeah, only the best coach this team's ever had. Of course he was the reason we didn't win a cup!

Seriously though, question is, would we have been better with another coach? I think not.

 

[metalfoot]

Martin's great strength was his great weakness. He was a great systems coach and had a team that was an intense, well-oiled machine; but he didn't know how to vary the plan for the playoffs.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

Martin's great strength was his great weakness. He was a great systems coach and had a team that was an intense, well-oiled machine; but he didn't know how to vary the plan for the playoffs.

This. Martin coached teams are heavily structured. You buy into the system or you don't play. It works very well for less talented teams, but stifles the creativity of skilled players.

Hell of a coach, just not the guy you need to win it all

 

[kilroy]

Martin's great strength was his great weakness. He was a great systems coach and had a team that was an intense, well-oiled machine; but he didn't know how to vary the plan for the playoffs.

Exactly right. I can't remember how many times the Sens' game plan obviously wasn't working and they never tried anything different.

The other factor would be that the team of Martin's era simply didn't have a bona fide first line centre. There were plenty of 2nd centres playing above their ability and an abundance of scoring wingers, but they never had a true first line centre.

 

[Laphroaig]

Exactly right. I can't remember how many times the Sens' game plan obviously wasn't working and they never tried anything different.

The other factor would be that the team of Martin's era simply didn't have a bona fide first line centre. There were plenty of 2nd centres playing above their ability and an abundance of scoring wingers, but they never had a true first line centre.

Alexei Yashin was absolutely a first line centre. He was probably among the top ten centres in the league. Having said that he always played in the playoffs as if he couldn't wait for the season to end.

 

[mcnorth]

I think they got out-coached, out-muscled, ran into some hot goalies, and were young. You see the names and wonder how they didn't win more - but those were the early 20 yr old versions of a lot of those players. In the regular season they played well, but I don't think they were ever as good as their record - at least in that they weren't really top contenders. The teams who eliminated them were usually seeded above them, though. Also, they got jobbed by play-off officiating which just didn't favour a team built for the regular season.

 

[Kellogs]

Looking back, I guess it was easy to blame coaching for our playoff failures. But looking at it now, outside of the Leafs' series, the team did pretty well in the playoffs. What we always fail to acknowledge is how much of a budget team the Sens were back then.

Back then there were two categories of teams - the haves and the have nots. The haves which included Detroit, Philadelphia, Toronto, Colorado, New York Rangers, and New Jersey, all spending easily $50m+ on team salaries. The rest were budget teams like the Sens. We were the best at being a budget team, meaning with the talent we acquired at the time, with the solid coaching from JM allowed us to feast on the have nots, and be competitive with the haves. That was enough for the team to consistently make the playoffs and even win a division title or two.

However in the playoffs, the teams that did us in always had a payroll which was close to two times more than what we were paying our players. We're talking about a difference of 20-30+ million dollars. Our current team which is struggling while being at the cap floor is only ~$14m off from what the top teams spend.

The only thing JM lacked was the $50m+ payroll all the other Stanley Cup winners had during that time period.

 

[DrEasy]

With the young team we have now and the way they've been playing of late, we could totally use a guy like Jacques Martin on our coaching staff.

 

[MainDotC]

With the young team we have now and the way they've been playing of late, we could totally use a guy like Jacques Martin on our coaching staff.

As Jack Martin always said Spetsa, "but this is a man's game...and he is but a boy".

 

[Filatov2Kovalev2Bonk]

Think Jacques is with the Penguins now isn't he?
I wouldn't mind him back as an assistant coach, he's still a pretty smart guy. Can't be worse than Melnyk's boy Cameron...

 

[QuietOnTheFront]

1996-97: In his first season he gave the franchise its first ever playoff birth with a team that finished last the season before.

1997-98: Made playoffs again and we had our first winning record in franchise history. Upset the Devils in the first round for our first ever playoff series win. Devils were 1st in the East that year.

1998-99: Established a franchise record with a 103 point season. Made the playoffs.

1999-00: Yashin sat out the year with a contract dispute, still made playoffs.

2000-01: lost in the first round and battled through internal problems created by Yashin. End of season we trade Yashin for Spezza and Chara. Turning point in JM's tenure.

2001-02: Made it to the second round.

2002-03: Coached the team to the President's Trophy and made it to game 7 of the ECF.

2003-04: First round exit and fired.



Jacques Martin was one of the best, if not the best, coaches in Senators history. Throughout his tenure his team would deal with what felt like a never ending run of internal problems. From bankruptcy to player holdouts, Martin got the most out of his team during times of adversity. But more importantly he got the franchise out of the gutter and turned them into one of the best teams in the NHL.

Prior to Martin we had finished dead last 4 straight seasons. The patience was given because he brought the franchise its first ever success. We were the joke of the league in the mid 90s. He made us respectable.

 

[SenzZen]

Apart from Leafs' goaltending being unreal, the thing that I remember as most defining about those playoffs was Shane Corson following (more like carrying)Yashin around with his stick between his legs for like 30 seconds, and no call being made.

I don't know what Martin could have done differently about that.

 

[DrakeAndJosh]

Can't be worse than Melnyk's boy Cameron...

Not sure how you could make that statement. Does anyone here actually have any idea what Cameron does or does not do for this team?

 

[SenzZen]

Not sure how you could make that statement. Does anyone here actually have any idea what Cameron does or does not do for this team?

WJC?

 

[CanadianHockey]

I didn't become a sens fans until after the 2003 run and before that I was a red wings fan. Looking back at the team from the late 1990s-2004 the one big question I had is why did the team keep Martin for as long as they did? Sure it was easy in hindsight to say to look at 2002 and 2003 when the team finally broke through and advanced in the playoffs. However, I look at 99-2001 when the team got knocked out in the first round all 3 times and only went 2-12.

In 1999 we lost to Hasek, who was at the peak of his career and would carry the Sabres to the Cup Finals, all while boasting nearly a .940 SV%. I think this was less about being out-coached, and more about losing to one of the best goalies to ever play the game. There was only one game where we got blown out in that series. As this was Martin's first 'underachieving' series, I think it's not unreasonably to see that he got a pass from the organization after turning the club around from its lottery finishes.

2000 was a pretty close series against a team that finished ahead of us in the standings, without the help of the team's star centre, Alexei Yashin. Again, not something you'd axe a coach over.

2001 is the only real series you could say Martin deserved to be fired over. We got rolled by the Leafs. I think the team's preoccupation with Yashin meant he became the organization's scapegoat for the loss, and he got shipped out that offseason. I imagine that, if we trade Yashin in 2000, Martin would have been fired.

 

[Senateurs]

Team was too young.

As much as Alfi was a God and really clutch in the last 6-7 years, he was a playoff underperformer more often than not in the early stages of his career. Same with Hossa, Bonk, Havlat and Yashin.

We also ran into godlike goaltending a few times.

 

[DrunkUncleDenis]

Yeah, only the best coach this team's ever had. Of course he was the reason we didn't win a cup!

Seriously though, question is, would we have been better with another coach? I think not.

*opening old wounds warning*

Not in 2003 at least, when we lost to the Devils by 1 goal in game 7.

Danyko said on the radio that if we would have beat the Devils that one game, although the Devils took 7 games to beat the Ducks, based on our team we would have easily taken the Cup from the Ducks. Supposedly just after winning, the Devils all stood in the locker room in kind of a stupor for a moment, realizing they had been outplayed (and Marty was a God), before celebrating their win against us.

Or so he says.

In my opinion, we were closer to winning the cup with that '03 team than we were in 07, even though the 07 run was more fun of a ride.

 

[frontsfan2005]

I've always wondered that if Martin was fired after the 2002 loss to the Leafs, that if the Sens were able to hire Pat Burns, if that would have made a difference. The team always seemed like it needed a kick in the butt come playoff time, and Martin always played the same old system, never had emotion, didn't like to take risks, etc... would have been interesting to see a polar opposite like Pat Burns take over the 02-03 Sens.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

*opening old wounds warning*

Not in 2003 at least, when we lost to the Devils by 1 goal in game 7.

Danyko said on the radio that if we would have beat the Devils that one game, although the Devils took 7 games to beat the Ducks, based on our team we would have easily taken the Cup from the Ducks. Supposedly just after winning, the Devils all stood in the locker room in kind of a stupor for a moment, realizing they had been outplayed (and Marty was a God), before celebrating their win against us.

Or so he says.

In my opinion, we were closer to winning the cup with that '03 team than we were in 07, even though the 07 run was more fun of a ride.

Whoever came out of the east in 03 was going take it all. That was Ottawa's year and one bad goal cost this city a cup.

 

[Senateurs]

Everybody seems to forget that we lost 3 straight game scoring only 4 times in that span. That's where we lost the series.

Same thing with the 04 series against the Leafs. Lalime was awesome and the only reason it went to game 7. We got shutout 3 times between game 2 and 5. Our best players did not show up.

 

[Countdown0]

Compare Martin to Mike babcock.

They both get their players to play a solid, effective system. The difference is that Babcock embraces the creativity of his skilled guys, like Zetterberg and Datsyuk.

 

[frontsfan2005]

Everybody seems to forget that we lost 3 straight game scoring only 4 times in that span. That's where we lost the series.

Same thing with the 04 series against the Leafs. Lalime was awesome and the only reason it went to game 7. We got shutout 3 times between game 2 and 5. Our best players did not show up.

Don't let the goaltending stats fool you. In every game in the 2004 playoff series against the Leafs, Ottawa let in the first goal. In the dead puck era, letting in the first goal in a playoff game always seemed to be a guaranteed loss. Some of those first goals let in by Lalime were questionable. Once Toronto took the lead, they'd sit on it, held Ottawa to perimeter shots, and Belfour stood on his head when he had to, and took very few chances offensively when they had the lead. Toronto was happy winning games 1-0. Ottawa was getting 30-40 shots a game, but watch where those shots were coming from, no traffic in front of Belfour, and in the rare time Ottawa had good offensive pressure, Belfour came up big. Martin sat Spezza in the press box or glued him to the bench when the Sens couldn't score, but had no problems playing Van Allen or Todd White, his favourites who did nothing. The Sens were schooled in both goaltending and coaching in this series, a trend that happened in pretty much all four of their losses to Toronto. How Martin survived being fired in 2002 is a miracle, although I'm sure a lot of that had to do with Bryden's finances. It's no surprise that when Murray took over in 2005-06 when he allowed the Senators some creativity in offense that the team took off.