Michel Therrien may have to pay price as Habs coach
Lack of wins might result in firing of Montreal Canadiens head coach
The sport of hockey and the National Hockey League is held in high esteem by some fans north of the border in Canada. They will spend their cozy winter nights, in front of the fireplace, watching their favorite hockey club. A special two months for Canadians is the playoffs, from the middle of April until the middle of June, monitoring teams on a quest for the Stanley Cup. As of the morning of January 20, however, no Canadian NHL franchise would make the playoffs. Most notable of the teams on the outside: the Montreal Canadiens.
The Montreal Gazette’s Stu Cowan said in a recent article that the Canadiens and head coach Michel Therrien are both saying the right things to the media and not bad mouthing the decisions made by the other party. Coach Therrien is in the middle of his second tour of duty with the original six franchise.
Whether you love them or hate them, no one can deny how successful the franchise has been. They are the benchmark. The club that teams emulate, given that they boast 24 Stanley Cups. And yet, after a promising start, things appear to be going off the cliff in a catastrophic way for the Canadiens. Since December 1, they have won only five of their last 22 games.
The team has been without their star netminder Carey Price for most of the season. They have dealt troubled forward Zach Kassian to the Edmonton Oilers for goalie Ben Scrivens and have been trying patch-up work with a tandem of rookie Mike Condon and Scrivens between the pipes. They did have goalie Dustin Tokarski on the roster. However, they were able to ship him to the West Coast to the Anaheim Ducks.
General Manager Marc Bergevin made a head scratching trade late last week. He dealt defenseman prospect, Jarred Tinordi, to the Arizona Coyotes. In exchange the Canadiens acquired NHL All-Star forward John Scott, who only has 11 career points. Also, there have already been rumors that Bergevin is calling the Tampa Bay Lightning and speaking to their General Manager Steve Yzerman about obtaining Jonathan Drouin.
Montreal fans are not happy and feel anything less than championships is unacceptable. Their discontent is not at the level that was seen in Toronto where waffles or jerseys were thrown on the ice, but Habs fans are completely dissatisfied.
It’s always said that you cannot fire an entire roster. We are in a salary cap era in the NHL these days, and trades become a bit more difficult to make given the financial woes franchises face in professional sports.
The team has their next game against their long time rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. Things need to change in a hurry and there is a growing sense that the man to ultimately pay the price is coach Therrien.