Montreal Canadiens: Looking Back at Michel Therrien’s Second Stint With Habs

The Montreal Canadiens are facing familiar foes in this playoff series. Let’s look back at Michel Therrien’s time in Montreal.

The Montreal Canadiens have had a number of exceptional men behind the bench of their team over the years. Toe Blake won eight Stanley Cups in 13 seasons. Scotty Bowman guided them to a 60 win season in an 80 game schedule and four consecutive Stanley Cups in the 1970’s.

Pat Burns won a Jack Adams Award while leading the Canadiens to a Stanley Cup Final appearance in 1989. Surprisingly, Burns in 1989 and Bowman in 1977 were the only two coaches to win the coach of the year award while behind the Habs bench.

Still, there have been many great people calling the shots for the Habs. There have also been some not so successful attempts to be the team’s bench boss. Mario Tremblay quickly comes to mind. His team’s won 71 of 159 games with him at the helm and though he was only in town for two seasons, he chased Patrick Roy from town. The legendary Habs goaltender demanded a trade after mistreatment from Tremblay.

Somewhere in between Toe Blake and Mario Tremblay is where current head coach Claude Julien rests. This is his second tour of duty behind the Habs bench, though he is currently home after being hospitalized with chest tightness. In his absence, Kirk Muller has taken over against a couple of familiar foes who are on the Philadelphia Flyers bench.

The Flyers head coach is Alain Vigneault who was just a young fella when he coached the Habs from 1997-2001. He had some decent seasons but the roster was a mess thanks to Tremblay and general manager Rejean Houle shipping every quality veteran out of town for little return.

Therrien took over after disastrous season

An even more compelling character in Habs history is the Flyers current assistant coach, Michel Therrien. He, like Julien, had two stints as Habs coach, and there were no shortage of naysayers and hecklers during his more recent stretch with the Canadiens that ended in 2017.

When Therrien was finally let go, it almost seemed inevitable with all the vitriol fired his way on social media. Watching Therrien on the Philadelphia Flyers bench in this playoff series with the Habs makes one think back to his time in Montreal. It isn’t remembered very fondly thanks to twitter, but was he really that bad?

Therrien took over the Canadiens bench (for the second time) after they suffered through a difficult 2011-12 season. The Habs dealt with a few key injuries that season, but had one line capable of producing offence with David Desharnais, Erik Cole and Max Pacioretty all scoring over 60 points.

The team finished with a 31-35-14 record and cost two men – Jacques Martin and Randy Cunneyworth- their position as head coach. In stepped Therrien for a second time, to try and build a contender out of the 28th placed team in the league.

Could they have another great year in 2014-15?

The following year Price was back and the team still looked pretty similar. Pacioretty, Desharnais, Gallagher, Galchenyuk and Plekanec were still in the top six and Markov and Subban were carrying a heavy burden on defence. PA Parenteau and Jiri Sekac showed up but didn’t fit in well with their new team.

Still, without any improvements and a complete lack of star power, the team finished first in their division and second in the league with 110 points. The Montreal Canadiens won 50 games for the first time since 1989 when players like Patrick Roy, Larry Robinson and Bob Gainey were on the team.

Yes, Price was fantastic but fans biggest complaints in this season were Sekac, Eller and Parenteau were not playing enough top line minutes and youngsters like Sven Andrighetto and Charles Hudon should have been given longer looks. I think time has proven that none of those players deserved first line minutes at that time in their careers, or ever, unless you were the Toronto Maple Leafs trying to tank for Auston Matthews and you put Parenteau on the top line.

The Habs ousted the Ottawa Senators in the first round, but lost to a tough Tampa Bay Lightning opponent in six games in the second round. The Lightning won the first game 2-1 in overtime and won Game 3 by the same score with a goal in the final seconds of regulation.

The 2015-16 season was Therrien’s first bad year behind the bench in his second term. They had to play 70 games without Price in goal and ended up with a 38-38-6 record which gave them 82 points in the standings. Considering Mike Condon was the team’s best answer in goal and he started 55 games, having as many wins as regulation losses wasn’t a terrible fate.

It was enough however, to turn the heat up extremely high on Therrien.

Tough season without Price puts Therrien on thin ice

He went into the 2016-17 season with high expectations and had a solid team on the ice. Big changes were occurring to the lineup for the first time since he arrived as Alex Radulov came to town as a free agent. Subban was traded for Shea Weber in the offseason and Eller left while Andrew Shaw was acquired. Paul Byron and Phillip Danault were acquired during the previous season but would be playing their first full years in Montreal.

The Habs record stood at 31-19-8 in February and they were leading their division. Therrien was then fired as the team hit its first skid of the season. Claude Julien came in to replace him.

All told, in his four and a half season stint, the Canadiens had a record of 194 – 121 – 37. To put it into context, that is 99 points in the standings for every 82 games played. So, on average, even with Price missing a full season while he was there the Habs were a 99 point team with Therrien behind the bench.

Not sure if you noticed, but they have not been a 99 point team since he left. Their best season since saw them secure 96 points.

Under the guidance of Therrien, Pacioretty, Gallagher, Byron, Subban, and Eller developed into terrific two-way players. We expected more from Tinordi, Beaulieu and Galchenyuk, but is that the coaches fault, or the fault of those who had a more direct impact on development? Or, were those players just not as good as their draft slot would have suggested?

It is hard to say. What isn’t difficult to see is the results on the ice were far better under Therrien than they were under the coaches who came directly before him or directly after. Michel Therrien’s second stint with the Habs isn’t remembered fondly by many Habs fans, but looking back, it seems we were spoiled into thinking we had a Stanley Cup contender that failed to materialize.

The more likely scenario here is, we had a mediocre team that routinely overachieved when Therrien was behind the bench, but didn’t reach the same heights when Jacques Martin or Claude Julien were calling the shots.