BROSSARD, Que. — We told Martin St. Louis to picture hoisting the Stanley Cup back overhead and asked him what it would mean to him to do it just five years after leaving the bench of his son’s bantam team for the one at the Bell Centre.

When the coach of the Montreal Canadiens gave his answer, it only confirmed why he might just make that vision a reality as soon as this season.

“I think of my dad, who grew up in Mont-Laurier (roughly three hours north of the old Montreal Forum),” St. Louis says. “He didn’t have a TV when he was young. They finally got one later, but he used to watch the Canadiens through the window of the TV store. He’d be outside freezing, sitting on the shoulders of his brother, watching those games. He loves this team.

“My dad is now 75, and I would just love to win that for him. My (late) mom and dad provided so much for me. Such unbelievable people. That would be amazing to do that for them.”

St. Louis, now 51 and entering his fifth full season with the Canadiens on Tuesday, understands this must be a selfless pursuit.

He could’ve talked about how amazing it would be to do this for himself, about the satisfaction he’d feel exercising his lifelong habit of proving the doubters wrong because, let’s face it, there were many more of them than believers when he first took on this mandate in his home province.

But that wouldn’t have jived with something else repeatedly said since taking the job in February of 2022.

The latest version of that St. Louis refrain came out in our 25-minute conversation at the Canadiens’ south-shore practice facility last Wednesday when he said, “I’m not going to win a Cup, they’re going to win a Cup.”

St. Louis knows that attitude is at the foundation of championship culture because he is a champion.

The rest, he said, is about strict adherence to being process-driven.

“Don’t you need to focus on the end-goal if you’re ever going to achieve it?” we ask.

“If all you ever think about is 'I’m trying to win a championship, I’m trying to win a championship,' you get lost in it,” says St. Louis, who won a Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2004. “You’ve just got to have your process and execute that every day.”

“Because it’s been proven,” he responds.

“Bill Walsh, Nick Saban,........

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