Martin St. Louis Leaves Legacy as One of the NHL's Greatest Underdog Stories

To Mike Gilligan, it hardly seems possible that he won't be seeing Martin St. Louis playing competitive hockey anywhere this fall.

"I thought he might play till he was 50, maybe like a Gordie Howe or something," Gilligan, St. Louis' coach for four years at the University of Vermont, said over the phone. "He's a guy who just loved to play the game of hockey so much, I thought they'd have to tear the jersey off of him. But now that I've thought about it, I'm happy he's going out on terms of his own."

St. Louis, 40, announced his retirement from the NHL on Thursday.

In 16 seasons with Calgary, Tampa Bay and the New York Rangers, the 5'8" (wink, wink) winger scored 391 goals and 1,033 points in 1,134 games, winning a Stanley Cup in 2004 with Tampa and an Olympic gold medal in 2014 for Canada.

He won a Hart Trophy in 2004, and nobody would have cared if the league altered the spelling of that trophy for just that one time.

"He was just all heart," said Perry Ganchar, St. Louis' first coach in pro hockey with the Cleveland Lumberjacks of the International Hockey League in 1997. "He just wanted it so bad. He just tried to soak everything up, trying to learn and get better. He was always tagging along with the older players, asking them for tips. He was like that dog (Chester) in the cartoon, always asking the bigger dog (Spike), 'What do I got to do now Spike, what do I got to learn, what are we gonna do now?' " 

St. Louis will leave a legacy as one of the NHL's greatest underdog-makes-good stories of all time. Despite a college career at Vermont in which he was a three-time finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, he went undrafted in the NHL. He earned a tryout with the Ottawa Senators after graduating from UVM, but he was cut.

So, St. Louis looked toward the International Hockey League.

The IHL, now defunct, was always seen as the league for young guys without a realistic chance of ever making the NHL or old, washed-up former NHLers just hoping to cash a few more piddling paychecks. 

"But he didn't look at it like that," Ganchar said. "I think he saw it as 'I'm in pro hockey, making real money and someone is going to give me a chance in the NHL at some point.' At the time time, he was so humble and respectful of those around him. He had a great attitude that the older guys appreciated."

St. Louis posted 50 points in 56 games with the Lumberjacks, who had an affiliation with the Calgary Flames at the time.

Under general manager Al Coates, Calgary was intrigued enough to offer St. Louis a two-way contract, and he left the Lumberjacks late in the 1997-98 season to play with Calgary's American Hockey League affiliate in Saint John, New Brunswick.

After St. Louis put up 26 points in 25 games and 20 more points for Saint John in a playoff run that reached the Calder Cup Final, his NHL dream came true when he made the Flames out of training camp in 1998.

Just two years and 69 NHL games later, St. Louis' career appeared over. He was released by the Flames, now being run by first-year GM Craig Button, and was passed over by Columbus and Minnesota at the 2000 NHL expansion draft—which was held at the Saddledome in Calgary.

"I talked with him a little at that time, and he was down. Down, but not out. He just vowed to work even harder to get another chance," Gilligan said.

To the Flames, St. Louis went on to be the one who got away. As Button, now an analyst with TSN, told the Calgary Herald's George Johnson, “No excuses on my part for now knowing Marty St. Louis better. I’d watched him since he played midget in Quebec. I’d seen him a little bit in the minors: That was part of my job. Player personnel, scouting, evaluation.

"That’s on me."

As the July 1 start of free agency came and went, St. Louis was again passed over by every NHL team despite being an unrestricted free agent.

About a month later, though, Tampa Bay Lightning GM Rick Dudley decided to take a flier on St. Louis. Dudley had seen St. Louis play in Cleveland as GM of the IHL rival Detroit Vipers and always had a thing for underdog players.

St. Louis impressed at the 2000 Lightning training camp, earning a roster spot. But after Tampa Bay's first 14 games of the 2000-01 regular season, St. Louis' goal total stood at zero.

Under coach Steve Ludzik, St. Louis was being used just like he had been in Calgary—as a checking winger on the third or fourth line. That wasn't his game. But in the NHL, once you get pegged as a certain type of player, it's difficult to get a chance to prove otherwise.

Starting with the January 2001 hiring of John Tortorella to replace Ludzik, however, things finally started to turn around for St. Louis.

If ever there was the right guy to believe in an underdog type of player, it was Tortorella, who played college hockey at Maine and some at the minor-pro level despite his own lack of size (5'8").

That didn't mean Tortorella came in immediately enamored with St. Louis. In fact, after a still-struggling St. Louis came into his office saying he needed more ice time and to play on one of the top two lines, Tortorella's attitude was, "Prove it."

Tortorella even called St. Louis' old college coach, Gilligan, to find out more about him. Tortorella played under Gilligan at Salem State College in 1977-78 before transferring to Maine.

"I told him that Marty had as much pure desire as anyone I ever coached," Gilligan recalled. "I just felt that those two would wind up being a good match. They both were cut from the same mold in a way."

The rest is history. St. Louis went on to a starry career with the Lightning, leading them to the Stanley Cup in 2004. His double-overtime goal in Game 6 against his old team, the Flames, to tie the Stanley Cup Final is still the biggest goal in Lightning history.

When St. Louis was given his day with the Cup, he made sure to take it back to the Vermont campus, posing for pictures with it at center ice of Gutterson Fieldhouse, back to where people first believed in him.

"I covered every game of his college career, home and away," Burlington Free Press correspondent Ted Ryan said.

"One of the reasons he came to Vermont was because he didn't want to go to the program that had the big reputation already. He and his friend (Eric Perrin, who played on St. Louis' line for four years and later with Cleveland and Tampa Bay) wanted to go to a place where they might stand out. He just didn't know the meaning of the word 'can't.' It took me about three shifts of seeing him and Perrin together where I said, 'I've never seen anything like this.'

"But I still didn't know if he'd ever get the chance to play in the NHL and certainly never guessed he'd go on to be the big star he became. People just thought he was too small, and at that time, college hockey in the U.S. was still considered a backwater in some ways. He proved everyone wrong, and in the end I can say I'm not all that surprised. If you said he couldn't do something, he would just go right out and do it."

Some wonder if St. Louis will really stay retired or not. Heck, he had 21 goals and 52 points in 71 games for the Rangers last season. Numbers like those get you $4 million a year or more in today's NHL. 

"But if Marty makes up his mind on something, I don't think he's the type that would change it," Gilligan said. "But I honestly thought he'd keep playing until he couldn't walk anymore."

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained firsthand.