Habs GM Kent Hughes on Martin St. Louis' future in Montreal.

Although nothing has been made official, it sounds very much like the new leadership of the Montreal Canadiens has already made up their minds.

Earlier in the season Montreal Canadiens owner Geoff Molson cleaned house when he ousted long time Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin and installed Jeff Gorton as vice president of hockey operations. The addition of Gorton to the team would in turn lead to the appointment of general manager Kent Hughes and the subsequent termination of Dominique Ducharme as head coach after an abysmal 8-30-7 record to start the regular season.

In lieu of Ducharme the Canadiens took something of a gamble on a relatively inexperienced head coach in former National Hockey League star Martin St. Louis, giving him the reigns of their bench in an interim role. In spite of the fact that he would inherit what most would consider an unenviable situation with the Canadiens and his relative lack of experience as a head coach, St. Louis would close out the final 37 games of the regular season with a much improved record of 14-19-4. Perhaps even more importantly though, St. Louis has seemingly unlocked the potential in some of Montreal's younger stars including forward Cole Caufield who capped off the regular season with a hat trick in the Canadiens' 10-2 victory over the Florida Panthers on Friday night.

It would appear that all of this has led to St. Louis earning the trust and confidence of the new Canadiens management group and on Saturday general manager Kent Hughes all but confirmed that St. Louis would be back for the foreseeable future after his performance behind the bench this year. 

"The interest on both sides is that Martin returns," said Hughes of his head coach on Saturday.

It sounds like there may have already been ongoing discussions between St. Louis and the Canadiens regarding a new deal moving forward, with Hughes even indicating that things should be finalized between the two parties in relatively short order. It would appear that after a strong debut as an NHL head coach, Martin St. Louis will shed the interim title and will earn himself a nice new contract as well.