Martin St. Louis explains the “positionless” science of hockey.

Martin St-Louis likes to mix up positions in his training sessions, so his attackers can find themselves in defensive positions during some drills, just as defenders can play striker.

It is not a coincidence. This new fad in the National League is “positionless” hockey, which is a rough translation of the English phrase “positionless hockey”.

• Read also: NHL: Quebec is back in the discussions

St. Louis was kind enough to explain this science during its press conference in Mont-Tremblant on Friday.

“If you take away the confrontations, hockey is much less of a positional game than it was 20 years ago,” the former forward said. We want our defenders to feel comfortable while attacking. If we want them to be aggressive, our strikers have to be able to play on the other side. It’s about replacing yourself a little. “He’s a good representative for everyone.”

Difficult decisions in the future

St-Louis is approaching its team’s final preseason game with the simple idea of ​​giving reps to players who will be on hand to start the regular season.

The Canadian coach admitted that he still has evaluations to finalize his training.

“It’s going to be about finalizing the evaluations and decisions we have to make,” St. Louis explained before Saturday’s game against the Ottawa Senators.

Matthias Norlender is the player who forces St. Louis to think. No one expected the Swede to remain in the Canadiens camp with only one preseason game to play.

Norlender was not mentioned directly by St. Louis. Rather, he said that the difficult decisions he will have to make are a big problem.

“This is what you want,” he stressed. If these decisions are always easy, it’s because you lack depth. “I knew we would definitely have tough decisions to make.”