Montreal Canadiens: Who Will Be The Head Coach Next Season?

The Montreal Canadiens is not going well. They have started making changes already with general manager Marc Bergevin being fired and his assistant Trevor Timmins also shown the door.

We will surely see some trades of veteran players in the coming months before the trade deadline on March 21st. Players like Ben Chiarot, Brett Kulak and Chris Wideman, who are on expiring contracts are sure to be dealt. Pretty much anyone else on the roster over the age of 25 could be used as trade bait to build for the future as well.

But who will be coaching this team in the future?

Dominique Ducharme took over as the head coach last February when Claude Julien was fired. Ducharme helped guide the team to the Stanley Cup Final but with things so bleak this season it doesn’t look great that he will be back next year. So far, his regular season record with the team is 21-36-10 in 67 games.

That is a 64 point pace over a full season. Even with a run to the Stanley Cup Final thrown into the middle of that, it is hard to fathom Ducharme returning for the 2022-23 season.

But if he is out, who will take over? The Canadiens won’t be going down the road of hiring another assistant like they did with Ducharme. They also lost Joel Bouchard from the organziation to the San Diego Gulls, but could they reconcile? It seems unlikely they would let him leave the club only to then try and promote him a few months later.

We do know, whether we agree or not, that the head coach must be able to speak French in order to communicate with the local media. There is no point in arguing with this inevitability, so we have to keep the candidates to those who speak French.

Who are the best candidates for the job when Ducharme is inevitably let go at season’s end?

Pascal Vincent

Before Ducharme was elevated to head coach status, the Canadiens had a history of searching for veteran bench bosses. A few of them even had previous experience coaching the Montreal Canadiens before once again being hired to coach the Montreal Canadiens.

Didn’t Alain Vigneault and Michel Therrien just get fired?

I kid. Sort of. Only because since the team is clearly headed for a rebuild, they may look for a younger coach to work with the younger roster that the team is likely to have next season. We know expiring contracts like those of Ben Chiarot, Brett Kulak, Mathieu Perreault and Chris Wideman will make attractive trade bait in the coming months.

But will the team continue to tear down and trade players like Tyler Toffoli, Artturi Lehkonen, Jonathan Drouin, Jeff Petry and Brendan Gallagher?

Perhaps, but even if it isn’t a complete teardown and rebuild, the team is likely to have a very young defence with Alexander Romanov possibly being joined by Jordan Harris, Kaiden Guhle and Mattias Norlinder next season. Maybe Petry and David Savard will still be around, but a young coach who can work with and help build up these young defenders will be key.

The team doesn’t need Michel Therrien benching every young defender and demeaning Francis Bouillon is signed again…

A younger coach like Pascal Vincent would make a lot of sense. He was a head coach in the QMJHL for 11 years, eight of them with the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles and three with the Montreal Juniors. His teams made the playoffs every year and advanced beyond the first round of the postseason eight times. He didn’t win any championships, but that’s pretty remarkable consistency at the Junior level.

Vincent was then hired to be an assistant coach for the Winnipeg Jets. He spent five years there and helped guide many young players as they transitioned from Junior, or college, stars into NHL regulars.

Vincent worked with Mark Scheifele, Jacob Trouba, Nik Ehlers, and Bryan Little as they found their way as NHLers. He was then moved into a head coaching role with the team’s AHL affiliate, the Manitoba Moose. There, he helped players like Kyle Connor, Jack Roslovic and a young Sami Niku learn the ropes at the pro level. Niku won the AHL’s top defenceman award in his first season with the Moose, under Vincent’s tutelage. Ville Heinola and Logan Stanley also learned under Vincent the past couple seasons and look NHL ready today.

Vincent is now the associate coach for the Columbus Blue Jackets and they are playing better than predicted as they hang in there in a very tough Metropolitan Division.

With expectations low next season, the Canadiens have the opportunity to try a first time NHL head coach like Pascal Vincent. As a head coach in Junior he had a career record of 407-278-85 and in five seasons in the AHL as head coach Vincent’s teams went 155-139-31.

He would be a terrific option to work with what will surely be a young Canadiens team next season.

Jim Montgomery

Jim Montgomery is a coach who worked his entire post playing career to climb all the way up the coaching ladder only to have it all disappear quickly.

Montgomery’s lengthy playing career ended in 2005 after 122 NHL games, some very impressive offensive totals in the AHL and stints in Germany and Russia. He was even traded to the Montreal Canadiens for Guy Carbonneau (speaking of former coaches who could be back..) although Montgomery only played five game in a Habs sweater before being lost on waivers to the Philadelphia Flyers. Interestly, he was the one who coined the “Legion of Doom” nickname for the line of Eric Lindros, John LeClair and Mikael Renberg.

Immediately after ending his playing career, Montgomery volunteered to help coach Notre Dame in the 2005-06 season. The following year he would step behind the bench for RPI where he would stay for four years. In 2010-11 he started his head coaching career in the USHL with the Dubuque Fighting Saints.

The USHL is essentially the USA’s equivalent of the Canadian Hockey League. It is the top Junior league in the country. Montgomery was the team’s head coach and general manager for three seasons, winning two championships in the league and was twice named the top GM in the USHL.

So after three years at that level, he was moving up the ladder to college hockey to be the head coach of the Denver Pioneers. Montgomery would serve in that role for five years, winning three NCHC conference championships and a national title in 2016-17 as well as a coach of the year award. Denver went 125-56-26 in Montgomery’s five years as head coach in a very competitive NCHC conference.

It was time once again to move up the ladder and Montgomery was hired as the head coach of the Dallas Stars for the 2018-19 season. The Stars made the playoffs that year and lost in Game 7 of the second round to the St. Louis Blues who went on to win the Stanley Cup. After starting the following season with a 17-11-3 record, Montgomery was fired but it wasn’t because of the team’s record or performance.

Montgomery would later admit he was dealing with alcohol addiction and the firing from the Stars was the wake-up call he needed to sort things out in his personal life.

He has done that and is back behind an NHL bench again. Just under a year after being fired by the Stars, Montgomery was hired to be the assistant coach of the St. Louis Blues.

Montgomery’s teams always pay close attention to detail and are difficult to play against. They simply don’t give up much defensively and we all know the Canadiens could use a coach that can tighten things up defensively.

Montgomery has proven over the years he is a very capable head coach at every level. He is an assistant now, but the Montreal native belongs behind an NHL bench as a head coach and the Canadiens would be wise to give him another opportunity.