Former Montreal Canadiens Coach Luke Richardson Being Dealt Brutal Hand By New Team

The Montreal Canadiens have a lot of things left to do on their offseason checklist. They have completed the NHL Draft and are about to begin free agency, but there are also a few other things to complete before taking some time off for the summer.

It would be nice to sort out the salary cap situation since they are pushing ever so close to the maximum at the moment. That could be taken care of by trading Jeff Petry, since the blue liner appears to want out, and the team could use the cap space such a trade would open up.

Carey Price’s status remains up in the air but there is nothing the team can do about their star goaltender’s health.

One other thing that needs to be worked out is the coaching staff. Martin St. Louis is heading into his first full season behind the Habs bench and will have Alex Burrows and Trevor Letowski with him as assistants. But there remains an opening since Luke Richardson left the team.

Richardson was the assistant coach who worked with the defence over the past few years. He also stepped up and was the team’s head coach during the third round of the 2021 playoffs when Dominique Ducharme was ruled out with Covid.

Richardson was hired to be the new head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks on June 27th. That was literally two weeks ago but it must feel like an eternity to the former Habs assistant. All he has seen since he arrived in Chicago is good players leave the team.

I sure hope the Blackhawks management team was up front with Richardson about their offseason plans, because here are the transactions they have done since hiring Richardson:

• Traded 40 goal scorer Alex DeBrincat to the Ottawa Senators for draft picks.
• Traded 2019 third overall pick Kirby Dach to the Montreal Canadiens for draft picks.
• Traded for Petr Mrazek who had the 87th best save percentage in the NHL last season.
• Chose not to give a qualifying offer to Dylan Strome following a 22 goal and 48 point season.
• Chose not to give a qualifying offer to Dominik Kubailk following a 32 point season.
• Bought out the contract of Henrik Borgstrom.
• Bought out the contract of Brett Connolly.

What’s next? With one year left on each of their contracts, you would have to think Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews could be on the way out of town. Why would they bother staying to play with a team that is slightly better than most AHL teams?

Kane was upset years ago when Artemi Panarin was traded, but they still had decent NHLers to put on a line with the star winger back then. Now? Kane would have to play with Toews and Sam Lafferty. Maybe Lukas Reichel makes the team and is immediately on the first line?

It’s as bad a lineup as you can find in the National Hockey League. That’s with Kane and Toews still on it. This team is not giving Luke Richardson a chance to be successful in the next few years. Clearly their plan is to bottom out and try to get Connor Bedard, but even if they do, it will take years to rebuild this team into something that resembles an NHL organization.

Hopefully Richardson was aware of that when he agreed to coach the team. Somehow, he has gone from the 32nd best team in the NHL to a much, much worse group of players.

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