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Canadiens Fire Coaches + Habs Hire Jr Star Ducharme + Habs Sign QMJHL Star |
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In a bit of house cleaning that I think most fans saw coming, the Montreal Canadiens relieved AHL coach Sylvain Lefebvre of his duties and are currently seeking a replacement. GM Bergevin stated that while he believes Lefebvre is an excellent coach, he and Rocket GM Carriere decided that the farm development needed a new direction.
I’m sure most would agree with that. The Canadiens have been ripening the fruit in the AHL for what seemed to be an extended period the last few years with very little reward. Only this season did we finally see the likes of Scherbak, Carr, Hudon, DLR, and McCarron after a few years of AHL time and when they arrived they took quite a while to acclimate themselves to the NHL. Not exactly how the process is supposed to work when they have the large amount of AHL time under their belts.
The only guy who came in ready from the start out of the AHL was goaltender Lindgren. Likely because he saw fair amount of pucks over the last couple seasons on these Lefebvre coached squads…
A replacement has not been named at this time.
That wasn’t the end of the house cleaning though as the Habs have also fired assistant coaches JJ Daigneault and D Lacroix while extending goaltending coach S Waite.
I must say that I agree with these moves completely, with all due respect to those who find themselves on the outs. Waite staying is essentially a no brainer, he is a fantastic goaltending coach with a winning pedigree. Easy move.
Getting rid of the offense and defense coaches was badly needed. The hiring of Lacroix never sat well with me. He came in from a Rangers team that let him go for a reason and I think that reason is he struggles to adjust to challenges in game and in preparation, and this is devastating to a team that needs to utilize players to their potential to generate offense. The Habs need smart coaching to find their strengths and maximize results. In his 4 seasons with MTL Lacroix never did that and when he came in the Power Play struggled immediately.
The PP was so bad that the Canadiens went out and created a new position for former captain K Muller to come in and help fix it. I must point out that for as anemic as the Habs offense was, Muller helped the team post the 12th best PP in the NHL this year. That is actually impressive, in my opinion anyways…
The Canadiens opted to change the D coaching as well in releasing Daigneault after 6 seasons behind the bench. It was becoming clear that JJ struggled with adjustments as well and with the blue line shedding Markov, Beaulieu, and Emelin he struggled to find anything he could make work outside of “Play Weber half the game on one foot”.
Some of that could be laid on Lefebvre’s lack of development in the AHL level as well as there was virtually nobody able to come up from the farm squad for NHL duty despite Lernout and Bourque having a fair bit of potential in them. The team had to rely on recently graduated Junior players in Mete and Juulsen to come in with minimal to no AHL time and hold their own. With these examples, is it possible that the AHL time for some of the Canadiens other D prospects actually set them back? I’ll never know…
Either way, it was definitely time for a change.
With these changes came some pretty good news as the Canadiens hired Team Canada and QMJHL star coach Dominique Ducharme as an assistant coach. Ducharme comes in having led Team Canada to Gold this past WJC and Silver the year before. He also has a Memorial Cup Championship under his belt as head coach of Halifax in 2013.
Short story is, the Habs landed one of the top new coaches out of Junior who begins his apprenticeship under C Julien and K Muller. That’s a pretty good core of coaches heading into next season.
The coaching situations in Montreal and Laval were hot topics amongst fans heading into this offseason and the changes have to be viewed as a positive. The Canadiens will hopefully find themselves a quality coach with better development and coaching skills for Laval, but now we are starting to see a bit more of a Julien influenced bench. I think this is already a step forward heading into the 18-19 season. Ducharme is a not only a champion but was a highly desired target from Canadiens fans. Even those with little faith in Bergevin must be pleased with the recent firings and hiring.
Speaking of solid moves by the GM, the Canadiens announced they have signed the undrafted captain of the QMJHL’s B-B Armada, Alexandre Alain. The 21 year old, 6’2”, 181 lbs, right shot C/RW has had an exceptional year in the Q positing 44 G and 43 A in 65 games with Armada. But he hasn’t wilted come playoff time as he has scored 12 G and 8 A in 13 games to sit 2nd in league scoring behind teammate D Batherson (22 its in 13 games).
The Quebec native is a fantastic poaching by Bergevin to add depth to the Canadiens system. With a large frame and high end goal scoring ability Alain has me excited for training camp already.
Add with him the other astute signings of Jake Evans and Hayden Verbeek and this years camp just got a whole lot more interesting. I was admittedly skeptical of the Verbeek signing due to his lack of high end offensive stats, but upon seeing some of his highlights and work this season and playoffs I can admit that he has some fantastic NHL potential. A tireless worker in the same vein of Gallagher who can finish is always welcome on my teams, at minimum he deserves his shot to prove himself.
With the recent surgeries to Byron (shoulder) and Shaw (knee) keeping them out until likely November, some training camp competition up front with these high scoring junior signings is even more important. Add the impact F the Habs are likely to land in this upcoming draft and the team should have a dramatically different feel this fall. As for who I want at their current position of 4? Wahlstrom all day. I would even take him at 3rd at this point. Wahlstrom is arguably as good a scorer as Svechnikov and after them there isn’t really anyone with that kind of elite scoring ability in the draft and the Habs need scorers.
Cheer up Habs fans! This offseason is actually off to a great start!
Go Habs Go!
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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