NHL Rumors: Michel Therrien will remain Montreal Canadiens’ head coach next season

Nobody is sure exactly why, but the Montreal Canadiens will reportedly stick with head coach Michel Therrien next season.

The Montreal Canadiens have had a disaster of a season. After a record start, star goaltender Carey Price got injured. Then he rushed to come back in November without even playing a full game, and the Canadiens season went straight downhill. They went from one of the best teams in the league to one of the worst in a span of four months. A lot of the blame falls on Michel Therrien. However, the Canadiens have reportedly assured Therrien that he will remain their head coach to start next season.

“Right now,” Renaud Lavoie said, via Sportsnet, “there is no doubt in everybody’s mind, in this organization, that Michel Therrien is going to be back.”

There have been a variety of things that Therrien has failed at this season and that he should be fired for. The biggest one is that he has relied quite heavily on Carey Price, who has masked issues with the Canadiens. Instead of working to fix those issues, Therrien has largely ignored them. Good coaches make adjustments not just during games, but over the season as well.

Another nail in Therrien’s coffin has been his gross misuse of center Alex Galchenyuk. After suggesting in the summer that Galchenyuk would finally be moved to center, Therrien quickly moved Galchenyuk to wing again. To complicate matters, Galchenyuk didn’t play with skilled linemates for most of the season.

Only after the Canadiens’ playoff hopes were gone did Therrien finally put Galchenyuk on the same forward line as Max Pacioretty. Lo and behold, Galchenyuk and Pacioretty have been arguably Montreal’s two best players since the switch. Therrien deserves a ton of blame for that.

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He also has a tendency to play his favorites. Most recently, Therrien has decided to keep enforcer Mike Brown on the roster instead of giving young promising forward Charles Hudon a chance to see what he can do. That’s inexcusable for any team and unforgivable for a team that is not playoff bound.