Bergevin decides not to fire Therrien

Graphic by Charlotte Bracho.

The Montreal Canadiens are in desperate need of a change

The Canadiens’ recent losing woes have caused speculation in regards to what should happen with the team and its management. RDS reported last week that if the team lost against the Boston Bruins which they did—head coach Michel Therrien would be fired.

Graphic by Charlotte Bracho.
Graphic by Charlotte Bracho.

I was ready for it. I don’t like blaming the coach, but people underestimate how big of an impact they can have on a team. One year, my hockey team went nowhere and finished at the bottom of the province. The next year, under the leadership of a new coach, we got three medals out of our season and finished third overall.

Coaching matters and a big part of coaching is being able to manage and produce young talent, which Therrien has shown he cannot do.

Alex Galchenyuk should be thriving right now. We should have never traded Jiri Sekac and we definitely should not have traded Jarred Tinordi for John Scott and Victor Bartley. Yet, Galchenyuk isn’t excelling and we’re practically giving away our talented rookies as they are unable to thrive under Therrien’s system.

I’m not opposed to trading our rookie talents if we get someone in return who will help the team’s current scoring woes. If General Manager Marc Bergevin wants to trade a prospect in order to bring in another talented player, that’s fine. However, that’s not what he’s doing.

Bergevin held a press conference on Jan. 21 and the contents were live-tweeted by the Habs Twitter account.

A lot of people were expecting to hear that Therrien had been fired as rumored. Spoiler alert: that’s not what we heard at all.

Instead, Bergevin said “it’s been a hard time for all of us, but I believe in Michel Therrien and his coaching staff. Nobody is going anywhere.”

Bergevin, to me, added insult to injury by adding he is “not ready to sacrifice the future of the team for success in the short-term.”

Mr. Bergevin, if you’re not willing to sacrifice the future of the team for short-term success, then why did you trade Tinordi?

He was a part of the future of the team. You traded a talented young defenseman for a 27-year-old who you immediately assigned to the AHL and for 33-year-old Scott who will likely never play a game in a Habs uniform. I do not understand the point of that trade, nor your press conference comments. I don’t think I ever will.

I’ve been a Habs fan my entire life. I’ve never quite lost my patience with a team as much as I have during this recent string of losses. Every NHL team will go through ups and downs in a season and that’s a normal part of the sport. What’s not normal is that no one in management seems to care too much right now.

At this point, their best hope is to put John Scott in the lineup. We have nothing more to lose, and maybe he’ll be the player who saves us all.

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