Top 3 Martin St. Louis highlights with New York Rangers

The New York Rangers will see an old friend behind the opposition’s bench when they visit the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night.
The dapper 49-year-old running the Canadiens is none other than Martin St. Louis, who played the last 93 games of his Hall of Fame career with the Rangers after they acquired him from the Tampa Bay Lightning on March 5, 2014.
Though St. Louis was no longer the player who’d won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL scoring leader twice with the Lightning when he arrived on Broadway, he played a vital role in helping the Rangers reach the Stanley Cup Final three months later, when he had 15 points (eight goals, seven assists) in 25 postseason games.
St. Louis had a productive season with the Rangers in 2014-15, finishing with 21 goals and 51 assists, helping New York win the Presidents’ Trophy before coming up one win short of a return trip to the Final. Ironically, his last NHL game was against the Lightning, who won 2-0 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final at Madison Square Garden that spring. He became the 55th former Rangers player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November 2018.
But the last game of St. Louis’ career was also his last appearance of any kind in the playoffs. The Canadiens hired him as coach in February 2022 and have not qualified for the postseason in his two-plus seasons behind the bench. He’s 3-3-1 coaching against his former team entering Tuesday.
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Most memorable Martin St. Louis highlights with Rangers

St. Louis’ time with the Rangers was brief, but he did have some highlights during his time in New York. Here are three of the biggest.
Game 4 of 2014 Eastern Conference Final
The Rangers led the Canadiens 2-1 entering Game 4 of the 2014 Eastern Conference Final at Madison Square Garden. They were also up 2-1 entering the third period before P.K. Subban scored at 2:00 to tie the game, which went into overtime.
Montreal got its eighth power play of the night when Benoit Pouliot was called for holding the stick 30 seconds into OT. But the Rangers killed off the penalty and won the game at 6:02 when Carl Hagelin intercepted a pass at the left point and fed St. Louis, who was skating towards the right circle. St. Louis blistered a wrist shot over the glove of Montreal goalie Dustin Tokarski for the 3-2 win. “The puck bounced a couple of times, so you just have to concentrate on your next opportunity,” St. Louis said after the win. “You get this far and you have to trust yourself.”
It was the fourth and final playoff overtime goal for St. Louis, and his first since scoring in OT to give the Lightning a 3-2 win against the Calgary Flames in Game 6 of the 2004 Stanley Cup Final.
The Rangers lost Game 5 in Montreal but advanced to the Final for the first time since winning the Cup 20 years earlier with a 1-0 victory in Game 6 at MSG.
The Mother’s Day Goal (Game 6 of 2014 Eastern Conference Semifinal)
The Rangers lost three of their first four games to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2014 Eastern Conference Semifinals when St. Louis’ mom, France, died unexpectedly at age 63 on May 8. Game 5 was in Pittsburgh one night later, and his dad convinced Marty that his mom would have wanted him to play.
His arrival at Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh gave his teammates a spark, and they stayed avoided elimination with a convincing 5-1 win.
Two days later, on Mother’s Day, Marty’s mom must have been looking out for her son. With his father and sister at the Garden, St. Louis was in the right place at the right time early in the first period of Game 6. At 3:34, he was credited with the game’s first goal when Derek Stepan’s shot hit him and caromed past Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.
“I got a pretty good bounce,” he said. “I know (my mother) helped me through this.”
Fans were already chanting “Mar-ty, Mar-ty” on his first shift, and the cheers only got louder after he scored. St. Louis, the first star of the series-tying 3-1 victory, patted his heart when he came out to an ovation from the crowd.
“Mother’s Day, my dad is here, my sister is here,” St. Louis said. “It’s been a tough time for my whole family. To be able to get the lead in the first period, it was a good one.”
Two nights later, St. Louis had the primary assist on Brad Richards’ series-winning goal, a power-play tally 7:56 into the second period that broke a 1-1 tie. Henrik Lundquist finished with 35 saves in a 2-1 win.
1,000th NHL point (Nov. 18, 2014)
Black Friday in 2014 was a bright and sunny day for St. Louis.
He entered the afternoon game at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia with 998 points, but didn’t waste much time becoming the 81st player in NHL history to reach the 1,000-point mark.
After an assist on Dan Boyle’s power-play goal 6:10 into the first period, St. Louis reached 1,000 points when he scored against Steve Mason at 4:14 of the second period in a 3-0 win against the Philadelphia Flyers.
“No doubt it was good to get it right away,” St Louis said. “You don’t want it to build up to become something.”
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