Canada's worst NHL team at holiday time? Les Glorieux
by Damien Cox, The Toronto Star
Nobody should be surprised that the Vancouver Canucks go into Christmas as Canada’s top NHL club.
An intriguing decision by GM Mike Gillis to try something different this fall coming off the club’s run to the Stanley Cup final last spring has, it would appear, paid handsome dividends.
The team's best players mostly rested during training camp and the exhibition season, a break from established NHL etiquette.
A compelling collision with the Canucks’ opponents from that Cup final, the Boston Bruins, looms early in the new year.
It’s the identity of Canada’s worst NHL team at Christmas that is surprising.
The Montreal Canadiens, it’s clear, are in a world of hurt at the moment.
With Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg bunched in a competitive pack in the east, and with Calgary and Edmonton trying to scratch their way north in the west, it’s the Habs that find themselves plummeting as the holiday season arrives.
The Canadiens are 0-4 under interim head coach Randy Cunneyworth, who was thrust into a most unenviable role a week ago as the anglophone replacement for Jacques Martin. Martin appeared to be jettisoned in a poorly measured, panic move by GM Pierre Gauthier that has left the Habs fighting an unnecessary language war in Quebec at the same time that the hockey club slumps.
Instead of letting that controversy burn out, Cunneyworth chose to start a new one Thursday night in Winnipeg when he sat out the team’s blueline minute muncher, P.K. Subban, who averages 24 minutes of ice time per game.
The result, a 4-0 loss, certainly didn’t make that decision appear wise, and now the Montreal talk shows and media have both the language issue and Subban’s future to chew on, not to mention Gauthier’s status with Patrick Roy apparently salivating at the possibility of taking over the Habs next season.
In one sense, Montreal’s troubles aren’t surprising. Star winger Mike Cammalleri, with six goals, is having a miserable season, while Scott Gomez, Brian Gionta and defenceman Andrei Markov are all sidelined with injuries.
That’s more than $18 million of players on the shelf, although Gomez wasn’t playing well anyway. Winger Lars Eller, the most noteworthy (thus far) player acquired in Gauthier’s deal that sent playoff hero Jaroslav Halak to St. Louis before last season, was scratched against the Jets along with Subban, putting yet more skill on the sidelines as Cunneyworth hopes for a more “blue-collar” approach.
We can argue the necessity of facility in French for a head coach of the Canadiens all day long. But the fact is that hiring an anglophone was going to cause trouble, particularly a coach like Cunneyworth, who has no record of NHL success.
Team chairman Geoff Molson, meanwhile, seemed to over-react to the public’s unhappy reaction to Gauthier’s choice of Cunneyworth as coach, putting out a bizarre press release committing the team to a future coach who could “express” himself en française, and seemingly cutting Cunneyworth’s legs out from under him after one game.
After becoming the public voice of the franchise following the departure of former owner George Gillett, this was the second misstep for Molson in a matter of months. His petulant public letter to Habs fans lashing the NHL after the Zdeno Chara/Max Pacioretty incident was the first.
Where’s the leadership in Montreal? We’re not just talking Molson, either. Gauthier’s three big moves this season — firing well-respected assistant coach Perry Pearn, trading for defenceman Tomas Kaberle and firing Martin — have all produced little to no results.
Cunneyworth’s lack of fluency in French is simply sucking up all the oxygen in the room.
“Everything is about Cunneyworth’s inability to speak French,” wrote the great Red Fisher in the Montreal Gazette this week. “What’s missing is that Cunneyworth has been handed a team that up to now has shown no signs it’s capable of being a winner.”
The Habs aren’t a particularly young team with loads of upcoming talent, nor are they a veteran, battle-hardened group. They’re somewhere in between.
First-round pick Louis Leblanc is up, but he played less than 10 minutes against the Jets. Nathan Beaulieu and 6-foot-7 Jarred Tinordi are good defence prospects, but the former is with the Canadian national team and the latter with the U.S. side for the upcoming world juniors.
Subban loomed as the burgeoning star, but seeing him as a healthy scratch certainly alters that perception.
The problem in Montreal is that the team can’t just quietly go about its business and work out the kinks, particularly with the French-English fires burning.
Suddenly, every other team in Canada looks more stable than Les Habitants, a startling state of affairs.
http://www.thestar.com/sports/hocke...s-worst-nhl-team-at-holiday-time-les-glorieux
(Second-best team in Canada? The Toronto Maple Leafs, only 4 points behind the Vancouver Canucks)
by Damien Cox, The Toronto Star
Nobody should be surprised that the Vancouver Canucks go into Christmas as Canada’s top NHL club.
An intriguing decision by GM Mike Gillis to try something different this fall coming off the club’s run to the Stanley Cup final last spring has, it would appear, paid handsome dividends.
The team's best players mostly rested during training camp and the exhibition season, a break from established NHL etiquette.
A compelling collision with the Canucks’ opponents from that Cup final, the Boston Bruins, looms early in the new year.
It’s the identity of Canada’s worst NHL team at Christmas that is surprising.
The Montreal Canadiens, it’s clear, are in a world of hurt at the moment.
With Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg bunched in a competitive pack in the east, and with Calgary and Edmonton trying to scratch their way north in the west, it’s the Habs that find themselves plummeting as the holiday season arrives.
The Canadiens are 0-4 under interim head coach Randy Cunneyworth, who was thrust into a most unenviable role a week ago as the anglophone replacement for Jacques Martin. Martin appeared to be jettisoned in a poorly measured, panic move by GM Pierre Gauthier that has left the Habs fighting an unnecessary language war in Quebec at the same time that the hockey club slumps.
Instead of letting that controversy burn out, Cunneyworth chose to start a new one Thursday night in Winnipeg when he sat out the team’s blueline minute muncher, P.K. Subban, who averages 24 minutes of ice time per game.
The result, a 4-0 loss, certainly didn’t make that decision appear wise, and now the Montreal talk shows and media have both the language issue and Subban’s future to chew on, not to mention Gauthier’s status with Patrick Roy apparently salivating at the possibility of taking over the Habs next season.
In one sense, Montreal’s troubles aren’t surprising. Star winger Mike Cammalleri, with six goals, is having a miserable season, while Scott Gomez, Brian Gionta and defenceman Andrei Markov are all sidelined with injuries.
That’s more than $18 million of players on the shelf, although Gomez wasn’t playing well anyway. Winger Lars Eller, the most noteworthy (thus far) player acquired in Gauthier’s deal that sent playoff hero Jaroslav Halak to St. Louis before last season, was scratched against the Jets along with Subban, putting yet more skill on the sidelines as Cunneyworth hopes for a more “blue-collar” approach.
We can argue the necessity of facility in French for a head coach of the Canadiens all day long. But the fact is that hiring an anglophone was going to cause trouble, particularly a coach like Cunneyworth, who has no record of NHL success.
Team chairman Geoff Molson, meanwhile, seemed to over-react to the public’s unhappy reaction to Gauthier’s choice of Cunneyworth as coach, putting out a bizarre press release committing the team to a future coach who could “express” himself en française, and seemingly cutting Cunneyworth’s legs out from under him after one game.
After becoming the public voice of the franchise following the departure of former owner George Gillett, this was the second misstep for Molson in a matter of months. His petulant public letter to Habs fans lashing the NHL after the Zdeno Chara/Max Pacioretty incident was the first.
Where’s the leadership in Montreal? We’re not just talking Molson, either. Gauthier’s three big moves this season — firing well-respected assistant coach Perry Pearn, trading for defenceman Tomas Kaberle and firing Martin — have all produced little to no results.
Cunneyworth’s lack of fluency in French is simply sucking up all the oxygen in the room.
“Everything is about Cunneyworth’s inability to speak French,” wrote the great Red Fisher in the Montreal Gazette this week. “What’s missing is that Cunneyworth has been handed a team that up to now has shown no signs it’s capable of being a winner.”
The Habs aren’t a particularly young team with loads of upcoming talent, nor are they a veteran, battle-hardened group. They’re somewhere in between.
First-round pick Louis Leblanc is up, but he played less than 10 minutes against the Jets. Nathan Beaulieu and 6-foot-7 Jarred Tinordi are good defence prospects, but the former is with the Canadian national team and the latter with the U.S. side for the upcoming world juniors.
Subban loomed as the burgeoning star, but seeing him as a healthy scratch certainly alters that perception.
The problem in Montreal is that the team can’t just quietly go about its business and work out the kinks, particularly with the French-English fires burning.
Suddenly, every other team in Canada looks more stable than Les Habitants, a startling state of affairs.
http://www.thestar.com/sports/hocke...s-worst-nhl-team-at-holiday-time-les-glorieux
(Second-best team in Canada? The Toronto Maple Leafs, only 4 points behind the Vancouver Canucks)
