The Montreal Canadiens sit at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings after a stunning late 2-1 lead became a 3-2 loss in regulation to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night.
The Habs have already reshuffled their front office and more changes are certainly on the way for the organization. Obviously, a general manager will be hired in the near future, and he will of course have to be bilingual.
The Canadiens are the only team in the league that have this requirement, but it is a belief in the local market that the person at the helm of the Montreal Canadiens should be able to communicate with the local media all by himself.
This debate has raged on for years in Montreal, with local, French speakers holding firm to the beliefs and other, non-local, mostly English speaking people telling the other fans what they should and should not find important to them. The argument never leads anywhere productive, but it is an obvious divide in the fanbase.
This didn’t get mended when the Canadiens hired Jeff Gorton, from Massachusetts, to be the team’s Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations. In his initial press conference, he gave an opening statement in something that kind of resembled the French language but he does not speak French.
So, what can he do to win over the fanbase? First, he will hire a French speaking general manager and then sort of blend into the background. Then, he can help that new GM pull off a couple of trades where they acquire some local talent.
Marc Bergevin tried to do that in the offseason, but he ended up with a handful of depth players that don’t really have a big impact on a nightly basis. Gorton should look to acquire some impact players from Quebec who can actually play top four minutes on defence, or in the team’s top six or are possibly among the top prospects in the game.
How could he do this? With these three trades.