Molson’s move was ‘inevitable’
In sombre dressing room, homeboy Darche says owner had no choice after collapse
At their Brossard training complex Thursday morning, Canadiens players talked about the latest bombshell to rock the team.
Pierre Gauthier was no longer the general manager. Bob Gainey was out as a consultant.
Principal owner Geoff Molson had briefed the media hordes on his decision to take a chainsaw to the team’s hockey operations department. And once the blood and viscera had been mopped up and the obligatory lip service paid to the proud, albeit lapsed, winning tradition of hockey’s greatest franchise, some players weighed in.
“It’s always not easy,” Andrei Markov said. “But it’s not our decision, and we have to live with it. I’m sure the owners want what’s best for the team.”
“Today moving forward, we’re going to start fresh and start building for next year,” Josh Gorges said. “In professional sports, when you’re not winning things have to be changed.”
Brian Gionta, seldom heard from since an injury sidelined the team captain in early January, said: “We’re committed to winning and everybody’s disappointed in the year we’ve had.”
“Our job is to play hockey and do what’s best for the organization,” said Tomas Plekanec, making the case that players are not overly preoccupied with what happens i n the seventh-floor executive offices of the Bell Centre.
The four players are acknowledged team leaders. But Markov was born in Voskresensk, in the former U.S.S.R. Gorges is from Kelowna, B.C. Gionta’s hometown is Rochester, N.Y. Plekanec grew up idolizing Jaromir Jagr in their hometown of Kladno in the Czech Republic.
They are f rom away, as Newfoundlanders say.
And because they are not Montrealers, markov, gorges, Gionta and Plekanec cannot appreciate the breadth and depth of the hole this team’s performance has carved in the hearts of this city’s faithful.
To understand the hurt and the impact of the Canadiens’ suckitude on the collective psyche, you have to be someone with bleu-blanc-rouge DNA. You have to breathe, eat and sleep devotion – always fervent, often irrational, occasionally unhealthy.
Molson made frequent allusion to the fans in his prepared remarks on Thursday. The first words out of the owner’s mouth, in French, were: “It goes without saying we are very disappointed. This is the best hockey city in the world, and we didn’t satisfy our fans’ expectations.”
Molson talked about a “winning culture.” He stressed the importance of “consistency and stability.”
And down on the shop floor, a Montreal homeboy knew what the owner was talking about.
Mathieu Darche grew up in St. Laurent. A graduate of Mcgill University, Darche played in Columbus, Nashville, San Jose and Tampa Bay – not to mention seven teams in the American Hockey League and a season in Germany – before joining the Canadiens three years ago.
To a greater extent than almost all his teammates, Darche understands what hockey means to Montreal. And because he is familiar with the local fever, Darche was not entirely surprised the front-office contagion claimed two more victims.
“In a way there was an inevitability, in knowing how proud Mr. Molson is and how distraught he’s looked about the situation this year,” Darche said. “But he’s a smart guy, and Mr. Molson will not make an impulsive decision.
“I’m sure he was thinking about it for a while. Let’s face it, we hear it around.”
Anyone with an ear to the ground, or in possession of a functioning radio, has suspected Gauthier and Gainey, the Hall of Fame éminence grise, were skating – okay, in the deeply weird GM’S case, slithering – on thin ice.
“It would be odd if a team like Montreal, in last place, made no changes,” Darche said. “And we’ve had changes all year, so you kind of expect it. But until it happens, you never know.”
The owner was not going to act on impulse, but the timing of the housecleaning, with five games left in this lost season, was a bit odd … if dismayingly consistent with firing assistant coach Perry Pearn an hour before a game and trading Mike Cammalleri between the second and third periods in Boston.
As his team continued in its death spiral, gauthier reacted with the a forementioned ad hoc decisions, plus questionable moves, such as acquiring Tomas Kaberle and his toxic contract (like, Gomez’s wasn’t bad enough) and letting Cammalleri go for less (and, it turns out, much less) than the Canadiens might have obtained at the trade deadline.
Improvisation is great for jazz musicians.
For sports executives, not so much.
Darche was born in November 1976. The Canadiens went 60-8-12 that season, while a 5-year-old Geoff Molson hung around practices at the Forum, admiring a pantheon of heroes that included the man he fired Thursday. It had to hurt. In his dark blue suit and funereal demeanour, Molson projected the air of bereavement he shares with Montrealers mourning this season of unrelenting misery.
Kladno won’t care if Plekanec comes home in April. Darche, however, will spend the summer answering questions about what went wrong.
“No disrespect to the Islanders,” Darche said, “but if they finish 15th it’s not a tragedy on Long Island.
“In Montreal, it’s unacceptable not to make the playoffs. It’s almost unacceptable if we only squeak into the playoffs.
“I’m from Montreal. I know the reality of what it is here. You finish 15th or 14th or wherever we finish, things are going to happen. If I were Geoff Molson, I’d be thinking the exact same way.”