Coaching Galchenyuk was a family affair
There’s no reason for anyone to be shocked or surprised by the departure of Alex Galchenyuk.
Galchenyuk was on the trading block for more than a year and he would have been gone sooner if general manager Marc Bergevin hadn’t been holding out for a better return. As it was, the Canadiens probably didn’t get fair value when they obtained Max Domi from the Arizona Coyotes, but they did get market value.
No other team was willing to give up more for Galchenyuk, a talented offensive player with an aversion to playing in his own zone. Plus/ minus figures aren’t always a true measure but Galchenyuk’s minus-31 — the fourth-worst figure in the NHL — was a true reflection of his performance.
There will be questions about whether the Canadiens’ coaching staff handled Galchenyuk properly. Was he given a fair shot at centre? Did the coaches give him the guidance he needed to become a better defensive player?
But the question that has to be answered is: Was Galchenyuk listening to those who were paid to give him advice?
We know he was listening to his father, Alex Sr. You could see them huddling after every game in the concourse outside the Canadiens’ dressing room, rehashing the game. There were rumblings from the Galchenyuk camp about the way Alex was being used. There were questions about why he wasn’t at centre, why he was getting less ice time than other players.
There were even questions about why he wasn’t on the ice at the end of close games. Given his defensive shortcomings, this should have been a no-brainer, but the Galchenyuk clan saw a conspiracy that deprived Alex of opportunities to score empty-net goals. When Galchenyuk and Max Pacioretty each scored 30 goals in the 201516 season, Pacioretty scored four empty-net goals while Galchenyuk had none.
I can recall two stories that illustrate the tug of war between Galchenyuk père and his coaches.
The first goes back to his days with the Sarnia Sting. During the lockout in 2012, I went to Sarnia to do a story on Galchenyuk. When the Sting ’s regular practice ended, Galchenyuk’s father, who was an assistant coach with the team, stayed on the ice with his son. At the other end of the ice, defenceman Connor Murphy was working out with his father, Gord, a Florida Panthers assistant coach who was at loose ends because of the lockout.
Jacques Beaulieu — Nathan’s dad — was the head coach and I remarked that it must be good to have players putting in the extra work. But Beaulieu wasn’t enthused, noting that he had two coaches he didn’t need and didn’t want.
The other sign of a disconnect between the family and the Montreal coaches came in 2015 when the Galchenyuks parted ways with agents Ian Pilver and Igor Larionov. The Galchenyuks were upset that Michel Therrien had benched Alex in some situations and Larionov, a respected Hall of Famer, didn’t side with the player.
“Ian and I were trying to help him to become a good hockey player but, more importantly, to be a good human being,” Larionov said at the time. “I would speak to him every day. I think I spent more time talking to him than talking to my wife.
“I tried to make him understand that he has to be patient,” Larionov said. “I had to wait when I was a young player. Every great player has a time when he’s going to be on the bench, but you have to learn that’s part of the game.”
The Galchenyuk trade is the latest example of addition by subtraction, hoping that a team gets better by eliminating a problem, either real or perceived.
It didn’t work when Chris Chelios was traded for a declining Denis Savard after Chelios had a runin with police in Madison, Wis.
Patrick Roy was sorely missed after he tangled with coach Mario Tremblay and the Canadiens came out second-best when Guy Carbonneau’s one-fingered salute to a photographer led to him being traded to St. Louis for Jim Montgomery.
The P.K. Subban trade to Nashville for Shea Weber continues to generate controversy. It has tilted in the Predators’ favour, but it had the semblance of a hockey trade.
The Galchenyuk deal involves two first-round draft picks who are both young, and it will take a while to see how the players adjust to their new surroundings and whether either team can claim a victory. If nothing else, it will answer the question of whether Galchenyuk is a centre, because if he can’t cut it on the worst team in hockey, he won’t be able to blame it on Rick Tocchet.