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Montreal Canadiens: Former Laval Rocket Head Coach Finds New Role

By Ken MacMillan

LAVAL, QC - DECEMBER 28: Head coach of the Laval Rocket Joel Bouchard looks on from the bench against the Toronto Marlies during the first period at Place Bell on December 28, 2019 in Laval, Canada. The Laval Rocket defeated the Toronto Marlies 6-1. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
LAVAL, QC - DECEMBER 28: Head coach of the Laval Rocket Joel Bouchard looks on from the bench against the Toronto Marlies during the first period at Place Bell on December 28, 2019 in Laval, Canada. The Laval Rocket defeated the Toronto Marlies 6-1. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images) /
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The Montreal Canadiens are all set behind the bench with Martin St. Louis who is, by all accounts, a very popular head coach among the players. He sort of came out of nowhere to be named head coach, and didn’t come up through the system like many others. Not that that seems to be slowing him down.

One coach who did come up through the Canadiens coaching ranks was Joel Bouchard. He was the head coach of the Laval Rocket for three seasons, and finally seemed to have the Habs top affiliate on the right track. They were having a respectable season in 2019-20 that was shut down due to Covid and then they had a fantastic 2020-21 season, though it was a shortened one.

Bouchard, a native of Montreal and a former NHL defenseman, once appeared to be the future bench boss of the Canadiens, but was passed over for Dominique Ducharme. When Ducharme got the Canadiens job, it appeared that he, another young, local, homegrown head coach would be at the helm of the Habs for a long time.

Obviously it didn’t turn out that way, but Joel Bouchard couldn’t have known that when he decided to move on to the San Diego Gulls to be their head coach in 2021-22. They missed the playoffs in that season and had a record of 28-33-7 and then replaced Bouchard with Roy Sommer, though they just had a much worse season under him.

Bouchard took last season off from coaching, but is now back behind a bench and will get to see plenty of the Rocket. He was just named head coach of the Syracuse Crunch who are a divisional rival of the Rocket.

It didn’t quite work out for Bouchard at the end in the Canadiens organization. However, he deserves credit for taking a team that perennially missed the postseason by a wide margin and guiding them to two of their best seasons in well over a decade before he left town.

His new team, the Syracuse Crunch, played the Laval Rocket eight times last season, so Bouchard will become quite familiar with the Rocket organization once again.

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