25 Facts About Jacques Lemaire

1.

Jacques Gerard Lemaire was born on September 7,1945 and is a Canadian former ice hockey forward and head coach who was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1984.

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2.

Jacques Lemaire spent his entire twelve-year National Hockey League playing career with the Montreal Canadiens and was a part of eight Stanley Cup championship teams in 1968,1969,1971,1973,1976,1977,1978 and 1979.

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3.

Jacques Lemaire was a NHL head coach for seventeen seasons with the Canadiens, New Jersey Devils and Minnesota Wild.

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4.

Jacques Lemaire is one of only six NHL players to have scored two Stanley Cup-winning goals, achieving the feat in both 1977 and 1979.

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5.

One of the two Cup-winners scored by Jacques Lemaire came at the 4:32 mark of the first overtime of Game Four in the 1977 Stanley Cup Finals.

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6.

Jacques Lemaire learned to execute his slapshot when he was young using a heavy steel puck, making his shot second only to that of Bobby Hull for speed and accuracy.

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7.

Jacques Lemaire was paid $75,000 tax-free annually and had absolute control over his contract.

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8.

Jacques Lemaire made his North American coaching debut in 1981, serving as an assistant coach at SUNY Plattsburgh to future NHL scout Herb Hammond at the NCAA Division III level.

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9.

Jacques Lemaire was head coach of the Minnesota Wild from June 19,2000 until April 11,2009, the first head coach of the organization.

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10.

Jacques Lemaire won two more Stanley Cups as assistant general manager with Montreal in 1986 and 1993.

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11.

Jacques Lemaire is known for his unorthodox coaching style for several reasons: first, he prefers a defensive-minded system, often using a strategy called the neutral zone trap.

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12.

Second, Jacques Lemaire rarely uses permanent lines preferring to use mixed line combinations during games.

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13.

Third, Jacques Lemaire never employed a permanent team captain during his tenure with the Wild, opting to rotate it on a monthly basis amongst the players.

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14.

Jacques Lemaire is regarded as one of the best teaching coaches – developing young players while working well with veterans.

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15.

Jacques Lemaire [Lemaire] helped drag down the entertainment quotient in this league, and despite all the talk about the Wild being a skating team that uses speed and pounces on turnovers, not all the elements of the trap have disappeared from Minnesota's game.

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16.

On one occasion, Jacques Lemaire's team was among the top two scoring teams in the NHL.

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17.

In June 2009, Jacques Lemaire was named assistant coach of Team Canada for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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18.

Jacques Lemaire joined Lindy Ruff and Ken Hitchcock as assistants to head coach Mike Babcock and helped Team Canada to the gold medal.

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19.

On July 13,2009, exactly two years after Brent Sutter had been introduced as coach of the Devils, Jacques Lemaire returned to the head coaching position for the Devils.

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20.

Jacques Lemaire announced his retirement as a head coach in the NHL on April 26,2010.

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21.

However, on December 23,2010, after Devils head coach John MacLean was fired after 33 games, Jacques Lemaire came out of retirement to coach for the Devils and led a charge that took the team from the bottom of league standings into contention for a playoff position before fading in the final few weeks.

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22.

On February 10,2011, Jacques Lemaire achieved his 600th regular-season win after Ilya Kovalchuk scored in overtime to win the game for New Jersey against Toronto 2 – 1.

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23.

Jacques Lemaire became only the eighth coach in NHL history to achieve this feat.

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24.

On September 14,2018, Jacques Lemaire would follow Lou Lamoriello to the New York Islanders, assuming the role of Special Assignment Coach.

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25.

Jacques Lemaire is the uncle of former Stars, Wild, and Bruins goaltender Manny Fernandez.

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