Jacques Martin (ice hockey)
Jacques Martin ( born October 1, 1951 in St. Pascal, Ontario ) is a Canadian ice hockey coach, who has worked since August 2013 as the assistant coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League.
Career
Jacques Martin played on the position of the goalkeeper from 1972 to 1974 for the ice hockey team of the St. Lawrence University before he decided on a career as a coach. His first coaching experience was gained at Algonquin College in Ottawa and in the Central Junior Hockey League, before he became in 1983 assistant coach of the Peterborough Petes of the OHL junior league. After two years he himself took over the position as head coach of league rival Guelph Platers, he led the same in his debut season to win the Memorial Cup, but switched in 1986 to the NHL, where he took over the St. Louis Blues. Martin led the team twice in a row in the playoffs, but failed in the first and in the second round and gave the coaching job again.
After working for two years as an assistant coach for the Chicago Black Hawks in 1990 went to the Quebec Nordiques, where he worked in the same role. For the 1993/94 season he left the Nordiques to their farm team, the train Cornwall Aces of the AHL, but returned in 1994 back to the NHL team. 1995 settled the Nordiques to Denver and began calling themselves Colorado Avalanche. Martin remained for half a year with the team before he took over the Ottawa Senators as head coach for half of the 1995/96 season.
In the following season, he led the young franchise to the first participation in the playoffs, which under the leadership of Martin should not miss the team. 1998/99 were celebrating the Senators their best season so far and occupied after the regular season in second place in the Eastern Conference. Although they failed in the first round to the Buffalo Sabres, though Martin was awarded the Jack Adams Award as the best coach of the season. In 2001, he oversaw the NHL All-Star Game the crew of the World All-Stars and the following year he assisted the Canadian national team in the gold medal win at the Olympic Winter Games.
The Regular Season 2002/ 03 included the senator's first time on the first place in the league from which they received the Presidents' Trophy. In the playoffs, they could confirm their good performance and went to the finals of the Eastern Conference, where they barely escape a later Stanley Cup winners, the New Jersey Devils subject. In the 2003 /04 season, the Senators were again among the best teams in the Eastern League, but failed the team already in the first playoff round and Jacques Martin was subsequently dismissed.
Already in May 2004, Martin received the post of head coach of the Florida Panthers, where he worked under General Manager Mike Keenan, with whom he was friends in college since their time together. In his first season with the Panthers, he was able to lead the team to a better result compared to the previous season, but missed the playoffs. After Keenan resigned his post as general manager shortly before the start of the 2006/07 season, Martin took over as coach next to his also the manager. In the following two years, Martin was able to maintain the performance of the team constantly, but do not improve, so he was released in April 2008 from his coaching job, but still worked as a general manager.
During the 2007/ 08 season he reached on 18 January 2008 as the tenth coach of the NHL history, the mark of 500 victories. From the season 2009/10 and in December 2011, Martin served as head coach of the Montreal Canadiens.