Ivan Demidov : Martin St-Louis repeats “he hasn’t thought about that yet”

Dose
Crédit:

Ivan Demidov is currently in Toronto. The Canadiens are in Ottawa.

We know he won’t play tonight (it was never in the plans) and it would be very surprising to see him take his first steps in the National League in Toronto on Saturday.

It should go well on Monday, against the Hawks.

But since he’s the topic of the hour, it was normal to see Martin St-Louis being questioned about it this afternoon, a few hours before the game against the Sens. Not questioning him after what happened yesterday would have been special, let’s say.

The job of a coach, in front of the media, is to keep the focus on the short term (so what he can control) and to take pressure off his players when possible.

And since Demidov hasn’t spoken to the media yet, the coach’s plan (in my eyes, at least) seemed clear: don’t say too much about #93 and keep the focus on tonight’s game, where the Habs could qualify for the playoffs.

So when he was asked twice about the subject, he replied back to back that he wasn’t there yet and hadn’t thought about it.

I haven’t thought about it yet. I’m trying to clinch a spot in the playoffs. – Martin St-Louis

We can think that he probably thought about it a bit, but we understand what he means: the plan is to win tonight’s game and Demidov won’t play tonight.

But when we listen to the video (around the three-minute mark), we can see that the second time he says he hasn’t thought about it, he has a tone of a guy who didn’t want to talk about it.

It was, however, the job of the reporters present to ask him more than once about the topic of the hour. And if the coach doesn’t want to answer, it’s his decision and his right to do so.

Also note that he said his team was “hard to play against” on the ice.

in Overtime

– Note.

– Talking about Ivan Demidov.

– Interesting.

– Indeed.

– Eh boy.

– Big season for the duo.