Jacques Lemaire

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CanadaCanada  Jacques Lemaire Ice hockey player
Hockey Hall of Fame , 1984
Jacques Lemaire
Date of birth September 7, 1945
place of birth LaSalle , Québec , Canada
size 180 cm
Weight 82 kg
position striker
Shot hand Left
Career stations
1962-1963 Lachine Maroons
1963-1966 Montréal Junior Canadiens
1966-1967 Houston Apollos
1967-1979 Montréal Canadiens
1979-1981 HC Sierre

Jacques Gerard Lemaire (born September 7, 1945 in LaSalle , Québec ) is a former Canadian ice hockey player and coach . With the Montréal Canadiens he won the Stanley Cup ten times , eight times as a player during his twelve-year career and twice as a member of management. As the coach of the New Jersey Devils , he won his eleventh Stanley Cup in 1995.

Career as a player

Jacques Lemaire played from 1963 to 1966 with the Montréal Junior Canadiens in the OHA , where he was able to achieve 93 points in 48 games in his third year. 1964/65 had also played for a game with the Quebec Aces in the AHL . In 1966 he went to the Houston Apollos in the CPHL , before he was brought into the NHL the following year by the Montréal Canadiens .

Lemaire was able to prevail immediately in the NHL squad, scored 42 points and won his first Stanley Cup at the end of the season . The Canadiens dominated the playoffs and only lost one game. The following 1968/69 season was not to be much different. As in the previous year, they met in the final against the St. Louis Blues , who could not oppose anything and the Canadiens won 4-0.

The next year, Lemaire and the Canadiens could not qualify for the playoffs. In the end they were only fifth in the East Division, tied with fourth-placed New York Rangers . Even so, they had 38 wins, better than the St. Louis Blues, which topped the table in the West.

In the following three years, the Canadiens came back with two Stanley Cup wins and Lemaire played his best season to date in 1972/73 with 44 goals and 51 assists, which brought him a total of 95 points.

After Lemaire could not celebrate any successes with his team in the 1973/74 and 1974/75 seasons , they dominated the next few years. In the summer of 1976 they won the first of four Stanley Cups in a row. Lemaire became a hero in the 1977 Stanley Cup final when he scored the decisive goal in overtime and thus led the Canadiens to a safe 4-0 win over the Boston Bruins . 1977/78 Lemaire played his best season with a total of 97 points and at the end of the season stood again the Stanley Cup victory.

He then played his last year as a professional ice hockey player in 1978/79 . Having only played 50 games due to injury, he was still able to score 55 points. The playoffs should be the best of his career. He scored eleven times in 16 games and prepared twelve goals, earning him a career high of 23 points. With his eighth Stanley Cup victory, he said goodbye in the summer of 1979.

In 1984 he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame .

NHL player stats

Seasons Games Gates Assists Points Penalty minutes
Regular season 12 853 366 469 835 217
Playoffs 11 145 61 78 139 63

Career as a trainer and manager

Jacques Lemaire remained loyal to ice hockey and only a few months after he had finished his playing career, he began a coaching career in Switzerland at HC Sierre in the National League B. In 1981 he returned to North America and took over the post of assistant coach at Plattsburgh State University before becoming head coach of the Longueuil Chevaliers in 1982 , who played their first season in the QMJHL . The year was very successful and the team set a record as the best league newcomer to the QMJHL of all time.

In the summer of 1983 he was hired by the Montréal Canadiens as an assistant coach, but at the end of the season he rose to head coach. The 1984/85 season was very positive for the team that could achieve 41 victories. Despite the successful season, he decided to give up the post of head coach and took over the post of assistant general manager for the following eight years, in which the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup two more times. In his management position, Lemaire was also responsible for the farm teams and the offspring.

In 1993 Lemaire returned to the coaching business and took over the New Jersey Devils , which had developed into an up-and-coming team in recent years. Under Lemaire, they became a contender for the Stanley Cup. In the very first year they made it to second place in the regular season and moved into the playoffs up to the conference finals, where they only had to admit defeat to the New York Rangers after seven games . Lemaire was awarded the Jack Adams Award for the NHL's best coach after the season .

The following season should be the highlight of his coaching career. His team marched through the playoffs and hardly a team could counter them. In the first three rounds they had only lost four games together and in the Stanley Cup final they beat top favorite Detroit Red Wings in four games. The next season, however, was a big disappointment when the Devils missed the playoffs as defending champions. But Lemaire led the team back to the playoffs in 1997 and 1998 .

In 1998, Lemaire returned to the Montréal Canadiens, where he served as an advisor to the general manager. He stayed in this post for two years, but in the summer of 2000 he took over the job as head coach of the Minnesota Wild , which were about to start their first NHL season.

As expected, the team landed in the lower regions of the table in the first two seasons, all the more remarkable when the Minnesota Wild reached the playoffs in the 2002/03 season and made it to the final of the Western Conference. Lemaire received his second Jack Adams Award for best coach for his work that season.

In the following two seasons 2003/04 and 2005/06 the team could not qualify for the playoffs, but returned in 2007 to the finals, but lost in the first round against the Anaheim Ducks .

Lemaire is known for having his teams play defensively and often swapping players within ranks and rarely maintaining a consistent formation over long periods of time. He is also considered a coach who manages to bring together young players and experienced players.

Jacques Lemaire played in the 1970s with his assistant coach Mario Tremblay and Doug Risebrough , General Manager of Wild, for the Montréal Canadiens and together they won four Stanley Cups. Lemaire is one of the most successful ice hockey personalities with a total of eleven Stanley Cup rings . He won eight as a player, two as a member of the Canadiens management and one as a coach of the New Jersey Devils.

Before the 2009-10 season , he returned to Lemaire as head coach of the New Jersey Devils. After being eliminated in the Conference quarterfinals against the Philadelphia Flyers , he announced his resignation on April 26, 2010, but remained in the franchise in a different position. After the release of John MacLean on December 23, 2010, he again took over the coaching post with the Devils . The team played much more stable and successful under his leadership than at the beginning of the season under MacLean, but the shortcoming of the bad start of the season was not made up for and the playoffs were missed. Shortly after the end of the 2010/11 regular season , Lemaire declared his coaching career over.

His nephew Manny Fernandez was the last goalkeeper of the Boston Bruins until 2009 and played under his leadership from 2000 to 2007 in Minnesota.

Achievements and Awards

As a player

In management

  • Stanley Cup 1986 and 1993 (as Assistant General Manager)

As a trainer

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ nhl.com, Devils' Lemaire announces retirement

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lemaire, Jacques
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lemaire, Jacques Gerard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian ice hockey player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH September 7, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH LaSalle , Quebec