Montreal Canadiens: Dominique Ducharme Is Staying Whether You Like It Or Not

The final question to Jeff Gorton, the Montreal Canadiens’ new Executive Vice-President of Hockey Operations, during his introductory press conference was asked by Francois Gagnon of RDS. A question that should’ve been asked earlier and dissected as thoroughly as a the redundant questions about him speaking French or hiring Patrick Roy as the next General Manager.

"Gagnon: Will Dominique Ducharme finish the season in Montreal?Gorton: Yes."

End of press conference.

No Ducharme isn’t a popular figure in Montreal. His sub .500 record since taking over the big job and his inability to drive his veterans and to properly support and let the younger players take chances will ultimately cost his job. However, according to Jeff Gorton, if he were to lose his job it will be once the season is over. So brace yourself until April as the wide-eyed rookie coach will continue to baffle your hockey knowledge and get you to curse in different languages.

Our own Andrew Haines recently wrote about Ducharme’s sudden 7 defencemen strategy, a mere 5 months after he used a 4 defencemen system in the playoffs. It’s not a foreign strategy as we have seen this many times in the past, especially when a team’s powerplay becomes anemic and/or a defenceman becomes such a liability at the back end but can’t be ignored for his offensive contributions. Past names include Marc-Andre Bergeron, Mathieu Dandenault, James Wisniewski and currently Chris Wideman and perhaps to an extent, new waiver wire pickup Kale Clague.

That being said, if you’re using 7 blue liners in order to bolster your special teams, why are we not seeing these “specialists”? Mathias Norlinder, who has been loaned to the Laval Rocket on Tuesday morning, saw 50 seconds of man advantage time in his first game. His reward for spending 17:39 on the ice and looking good despite seeing his team getting demolished 6-0 against the Penguins was to have his time cut off the next game against Nashville and spent no time on the powerplay. He was then sent to the press box against Washington, was dressed against Buffalo but again, no time on the powerplay during 13:39 of play. The next game against Pittsburgh, he’s out for only 9:50 but played 1:03 on the man advantage and notched an assist all while looking like a quarterback at the blue line. His reward? No PP time the next game while still playing 12:27 against Vancouver, in the press box against Colorado and then played 8:58 against Nashville with of course, no time on the powerplay.

Your team is losing. The season is already a wash and this is how you utilize your prospects? No wonder our development program is in shambles.

But what do we know, right? I mean Ben Chiarot scored his 2nd career powerplay point against Colorado (2 goals 0 assists) all while playing on average a minute per game on the man advantage and 23:18 a night.

Chris Wideman you say? Well yes, he’s being used proficiently when up a man. Wideman has so far averaged 2:43 on the PP but has seen his ice time bounce like a yo-yo playing between 12 and 18 minutes a game for a season average 14:40 a game. So he’s being used where his strengths are but is also covering for guys like Petry and Chiarot when they need a break and that just ends up being a disaster.

That’s only the tip of the iceberg.

After a great start to the season, Jonathan Drouin is showing his true colors once again and offering us uninspired hockey and looks like a guy who just wants to take the first flight out of here. Same can be said for Joel Armia who’s been coasting since signing his 4 year $13.6 million contract. Add Christian Dvorak and those 3 names alone will likely take up most of the conversation at the holiday dinner table.

We’ll skip Jeff Petry and David Savard for this one.

The point of all of this is, despite rumors that the veterans have checked out on Ducharme and despite the fact that looking from the outside in, it looks like Price, Weber, Perry and Staal were responsible for motivating the team to reach the finals last year, there’s just no point in changing coaches as we speak. The Vancouver Canucks gave a 2 year prorated contract to Bruce Boudreau while the Flyers tagged Mike Yeo as the interim. Hiring Boudreau means they have no idea who the GM will be and things are more dire than ever in the locker room, while in Philadelphia, the Flyers have the luxury to have an assistant with NHL experience as a head coach.

Meanwhile in Montreal, the team is still paying the final year of Claude Julien’s $5 million annual salary so i’m sure that factor weighs heavily on the decision to keep Ducharme. Furthermore, if you’re planning to rebuild, you can’t have a savior this year because we owe the Arizona Coyotes a first round pick for Christian Dvorak. So do you tank and keep a lottery pick or you start winning and hand Arizona the 10th overall pick, for example? Do we start dreaming about Shane Wright?

The Canadiens are going through a transitional period in upper management that hasn’t been seen in forever. Hire the right GM, work the rest of the year on rebuilding your departments, trading your tradeable assets for picks and prospects and once it’s all over, then you start fresh with a new coach and a new philosophy and a new direction.

Trust me, Alain Vigneault, Bob Hartley or Alex Burrows ain’t the solution, nor is letting Luke Richardson coach the rest of the year, unless you want another Randy Cunneyworth media fiasco.