Gainey’s Press Conference
Posted by Habitual Offender in General, News on April 23rd, 2009
Here’s a brief summary of Gainey’s end-of-season press conference with members of the media today.
- Coaching next year is not out of the question. He’ll take a couple weeks to separate from the season and look at the situation. Will start making decisions two to three weeks from now.
- Will be taking a look at his responsibilities and those of the coaching staff. Should be ready to move forward before June.
- When asked what his priorities will be leading up to the draft, responded by saying,
“I haven’t really started to work towards the management of the team. Normallly the schedule starts to roll towards the 15th of May.”
- Will be looking to develop a plan for the off-season in the coming weeks. Looking at who they need to attempt to re-sign, exploring trades and prepping for draft meetings and the combine.
- When he made the trade for Lang in September, really felt that on paper the team had a chance to live up to the expectations. Thought that Tanguay and Lang would supplement the offense and replace Streit’s production, and team would be better with player’s projected growth.
Worked really well for the first half of the season, but problems started in second half. When they started to accumulate along with injuries, the team no longer compared to the team on paper last September.
- When asked if it were his choice, would he want to be back as general manager, he responded by saying,
“I’m sitting here today with the idea that I still have work to do.”
- Blasted Tampa Bay management, calling them disgraceful. Said during preliminary negotiations for Lecavalier, the Lightning sent a list of players it wanted, then leaked the list to gain leverage with other teams. Said it wasn’t fair for Higgins, Plekanec and Gorges to have to read that stuff.
- When asked if the media scrutiny had become unbearable, responded by saying,
“Frankly, for me, it’s overblown. I don’t follow what most of you guys do. I’m sure some of you are good and some of you aren’t, I guess.
People love the sport here, and that’s a positive. Sometimes passion can be a detrimental, though.”
- Asked if ever felt the pressure:
“No, because I know the guy in Nashville wants to win as much as I do. We have no entitlement to a place in the playoffs.”
- On Carey Price:
“I made the decision a year ago to put him in a position to gain experience. At 21 years old, I think he’s doing pretty darn well. Besides that, I think he plays pretty good. He’s a good goalie. If I was playing against him, I would think, ‘man, that’s a good goalie. I like the way he plays.’ “
- When asked if this was the most challenging off-season he will ever face,
“I don’t know. Each year we finish and we take what’s in front of us, and then we start to work with it. This will be my fifth year in this new CBA environment. We’re more comfortable with it, we understand it. We know that thte cap might shift and we know what that means.”
Overall, Gainey displayed strong confidence in answering questions. His demeanor was not that of a beaten down coach/GM, but that of a man ready and willing to accept the difficult mission that this off-season will be.
Save Some Trouble, Hang Onto Bob
Posted by Habitual Offender in General on April 23rd, 2009
His five-year plan hasn’t brought the results that many expected, but Bob Gainey should remain as general manager.
His recent coaching stint aside, the man has made few mistakes since being hired in 2003. The ones he has made seem much more grave today with Claude Julien and Michael Ryder sweeping the Habs under Gainey’s lead, but that’s the beauty of hindsight. Gainey is many things, but he is not a seer.
It’s hard to predict where the team would be now had Julien remained as coach, but there’s no guarantee that the 3 1/2 years since his firing would have been much different. Julien has led his teams to three playoff berths and one regular season Eastern Conference title since his departure, which mirrors the Habs performance in that time. It remains to be seen how far his Bruins will take that 1st place finish, but his dismissal didn’t set the organization back as much as it would appear to have now.
Michael Ryder, the as-of-now leading point-getter in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, responded well after being reunited with Julien, just as many predicted. Ryder reached the 50 point mark for the fourth time in his five NHL seasons and finished the year plus-28. His 27 goals on 185 shots gave him the highest shooting percentage of his career, at 14.6%.
Those are numbers Montreal could have used this season, but with so many players showing remarkable improvement last year, it made little sense to sign the 8th leading scorer on the team to a $4 million contract. You can place the blame on management for letting him walk if you choose, but every player ahead of him on the scoring chart that year played to their potential without any signs overachievement. The exception may go to Chris Higgins, though his totals were in line with his progression to that point.
Rk Player Pos Ht Wt Age GP G A PTS +/- PIM 1 Alex Kovalev RW 6-1 224 34 82 35 49 84 18 70 2 Tomas Plekanec LW 5-10 194 25 81 29 40 69 15 42 3 Mark Streit D 6-0 197 30 81 13 49 62 -6 28 4 Andrei Markov D 6-0 204 29 82 16 42 58 1 63 5 Saku Koivu C 5-10 187 33 77 16 40 56 -4 93 6 Andrei Kostitsyn W 6-0 201 22 78 26 27 53 15 29 7 Christopher Higgins C 6-0 199 24 82 27 25 52 0 22 8 Michael Ryder RW 6-0 186 27 70 14 17 31 -4 30 Stats courtesy of Hockey-Database.com
The loss of Ryder should not be considered a fault of Gainey, who made a sincere effort to improve the top-6 with the additions of Alex Tanguay and Robert Lang. Both players were on pace to surpass Ryder’s career high in points before injuries took their toll.
The only monstrous gaffe during Gainey’s tenure has been the letting go of Mark Streit. The Swiss defender took his 62-point 2007-’08 campaign to the New York Islanders who were eager to hand him a 5-year, $20.5 milllion contract and the promise of playing defense. The Canadiens inability to define Streit’s role for the upcoming season was allegedly behind his decision not to re-sign.
The Habs powerplay suffered immensely without him, dropping from 1st in ‘07-’08 (24.0%) to 11th in ‘08-’09 (19.3%). Their ‘09 percentage would not have made it above the league average of 18.9% had it not been for the late-season addition of Mathieu Schneider.
Though there are many decisions that could be debated one way or another, most have had very little impact on the club in a negative fashion. He’s not perfect, but thus far Gainey’s strengths have outweighed his weaknesses. It would be hard to find a suitable replacement for whom you could make that claim, and now is not the time to start looking.
The Off-Season: Finding a Coach
Posted by Habitual Offender in Coaching, Off-Season on April 23rd, 2009
The first objective of this off-season will likely be to have a new head coach in place before the draft. With ownership in the process of determining whether or not to sell the team, chances are Bob Gainey will remain in his role as general manager long enough to make this decision.
One candidate is current assistant coach Don Lever, who has spent the last 3 1/2 years babysitting in Hamilton before getting his own call-up to Montreal in March. Lever is a knowledgeable tactician who’s pushed these guys before, leading several players on the current roster to the Calder Cup Championship in 2006-07. He has a history of making guys accountable by publicly calling them out,
“(Corey) Locke is nonexistent,” he seethed. “(Matt) D’Agostini is nonexistent, (Janne) Lahti is nonexistent, (Duncan) Milroy is nonexistent and (Eric) Manlow can’t play games back to back.” [Source]
While not regular tactics of a NHL coach, they worked in the enviornment he was in and many believe he has the ability to adapt at the next level, including Scotty Bowman and Pat Burns.
The main knock against him will be that he doesn’t speak French. That’s not a quality of a successful head coach, but it has become a necessity to the large, bilingual fanbase in Quebec. While I like the idea of Lever running this squad, it won’t work with the Habs continued impatience with inexperienced coaches.
Regardless, team president Pierre Boivin may have already dealt the dagger blow to Lever’s chances. In a recent interview, Boivin stated that the next head coach will be bilingual and will have NHL experience.
With eleven unrestricted free-agents, including 3/4 of the captaincy, this team needs an identity heading into next season. The opportunity is now to define this team by the man behind the bench. The players have been given a free ride for several years now, watching coach after coach take the fall for their shortcomings. If Boivin’s word holds up, the likely list of candidates dwindles to a select few.
Marc Crawford - The former Quebec Nordiques head coach was fired in June of 2008 by the Los Angeles Kings after two losing seasons. He spent the 2008-09 season as a color commentator for the CBC and could be looking to make his return to coaching. Crawford is bilingual, has coached 13 seasons in the NHL making the playoffs in eight times, and won the Stanley Cup in 1995-96.
Bob Hartley - The Franco-Ontarian replaced Crawford in Colorado for the 1998-99 season, leading the Avalanche to four straight division titles. The team was a force in the playoffs, reaching game seven of the Western Conference Finals three times in four seasons and winning the Stanley Cup in 2000-01.
31 games into the 2002-03 season, Hartley was let go by the Avalanche and quickly picked up by the Atlanta Thrashers just one month later. In his third year with Atlanta, he led the Thrashers to their first ever playoff appearance. Hartley was fired last season after posting an 0-6 start to the year, and has been out of coaching since.
Jacques Lemaire - Lemaire recently stepped down as head coach of the Minnesota Wild, and is no stranger to Montreal Canadiens hockey. The former Hab spent 12 seasons in a Canadiens uniform during the ’60s and ’70s, eventually taking over the coaching reigns in the early ’80s. With the Canadiens recent hirings of former members of the organization, Lemaire will at least be an option for head coach.
Jacques Martin - Still under contract to the Florida Panthers as their general manager, Martin doesn’t fall under the category of “available,” but with his team failing to make the playoffs in four years under his helm as either coach or GM, he could soon be on the unemployment line.
Martin has a wealth of experience with four division titles, 10 playoff appearances and over 1,000 games at the NHL level. Martin’s teams, however, have proven to be playoff disasters with six first-round exits and one trip to the Conference finals.
These are the more prominent names on a list that probably won’t be much longer, given Boivin’s handcuffing of the team.
Hartley will get a favorable nod, as he was rumored to be following the club awhile back at Boivin’s request. His no-nonsense approach may be what the team needs in the short-run, but it’s an act that wears thin over the course of time.
Marc Crawford brings a lot of the same to the table, but as a better-rounded coach. His ability to get into player’s heads is impeccable, and he’s shown that he can develop high-powered offensive systems. Where his teams have fallen short is on the defensive side. His attraction to Dan Cloutier didn’t help either.
With the direction of the team, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to go with a guy of Lemaire’s age. He spent eight seasons in Minnesota teaching his system, and walks away with little to show for it. He doesn’t offer a quick turn-around for this Montreal club, and his seniority doesn’t make him a long-term fit.
Martin would bring the most complete package to the table, should he become available. He has an uncanny ability to work with both veteran and young players, getting both groups to buy into his systematic, well-disciplined system. He is the perfect coach for a team in need of an identity.
Should Martin walk away from Florida, I would like to think that he will be the next head coach of the Montreal Canadiens.
The Off-season: Day One
Posted by Habitual Offender in Off-Season on April 22nd, 2009
It was supposed to be a season full of promise and expectations for the Montreal Canadiens. General manager Bob Gainey made every effort to ice a squad that could not only repeat their first place finish in 2007-08, but also contend for the Stanley Cup in their 100th year.
Gainey used the NHL Entry Draft as his starting point and flipped a package of draft picks including the team’s 2008 1st rounder for veteran winger Alex Tanguay. He then used the free agent market to bring in a physical presence with Georges Laraque’s three-year contract and capped the summer with the acquisition of center Robert Lang from Chicago.
The city of Montreal hadn’t experienced a summer this rich in excitement in quite some time, leaving many with the feeling that this was the year. Their year.
Flash forward to April 22nd, 2009: The Montreal Canadiens have just been swept by the Boston Bruins in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Many will spend the next few days asking, “what went wrong?” and the following weeks outlining ways to right the ship. I will be taking part in the latter, starting with head coaching candidates.