Habs’ glory days long gone
For those entranced by the lore, mystery and history of hockey, it’s a fascinating question.
Can the Montreal Canadiens ever be truly great again?
Beyond that lies an even larger issue in the 30-team, salary cap restricted hockey world of 2012. Can any team be truly great? The answer to the second question may well be a negative one, which means all the words spouted by Habs owner/president Geoffrey Molson on Thursday after firing GM Pierre Gauthier — including, “It is my responsibility to identify solutions and to rebuild the winning culture that this franchise, its fans, its history and its tradition demand” — may just be so much talk.
The Canadiens, probably, will never be able to be what they were ever again.
What they can be, quite probably, is something close to that, a team with a certain style, mystique and dedication to winning, something that has clearly been sliding ever since the club won its last Stanley Cup 19 years ago.
The Maple Leafs, of course, have gone 45 springs since winning it all. To Montrealers however, their wait feels longer.
Both the Leafs and Habs are down in the dumps now and it’s an interesting debate which is likelier to return sooner to the ranks of the competitive.
In Toronto, some are howling for the head of Brian Burke, and their howls will likely be intensified now that Gauthier has been dismissed in Montreal. After all, if Gauthier can be canned slightly more than two years after being hired for unsatisfactory results, how is it that Burke retains his position after being on the job longer?
Well, the situations have some things in common, but not much.
We can argue whether the Leafs have progressed or regressed under Burke’s watch. It is however, indisputable that the Habs went backwards after Gauthier replaced Bob Gainey at the top of the Montreal hockey pyramid, taking a team that enthralled the nation with a run to the 2010 final four, first to an opening-round playoff ouster, then to last place in the conference.
Burke inherited a non-playoff team, blew it apart, and it remains a non-playoff team. Gauthier, on the other hand, inherited a conference finalist.
At the GM meetings in Boca Raton less than three weeks ago, Gauthier seemed confident he would get to continue his mandate. Veteran media watchers in Montreal were mystified by that and could only guess that perhaps Gauthier had forged a bond with Molson that would survive this disastrous campaign.
That wasn’t the case. In fact, Gainey, who was acting as a behind-the-scenes righthand man to Gauthier, is gone as well, opening the door for a brand new era in Canadiens hockey.
To find any semblance of their former greatness, the Canadiens must find a way to move forward and grapple with all the parameters and restrictions of the modern NHL that make it nearly impossible for any team to be dominant for very long, let alone win multiple Cups in a short period of time.
Perhaps the goal of the Habs should be to become something like what the Detroit Red Wings are now, a team with a distinctive approach, character, manner of playing the game, and consistent excellence that has had them in the post-season for 21consecutive seasons. That period of time has included four Cups, and in modern terms that may be equivalent to being a dynasty.
More than that, there’s a flavour the Wings bring to the table that really began under Scotty Bowman’s watch and has continued under Ken Holland’s brilliant leadership. Other teams dump and chase; the Wings control the puck and try to be creative. Other teams use brawn and intimidation; Detroit beats you with brains and flair. Can Montreal be that? The Habs were never going to be that under the coaching of Jacques Martin, that’s for sure, and finding someone to coach the team with a sense of imagination beyond trapping and defence might be more important than replacing Gauthier. Like the Leafs, the Habs have looked for shortcuts around their problems, and this year that included trading for Tomas Kaberle and a deal with Calgary for Rene Bourque that may only pay dividends if the futures included in the swap work out.
The most egregious of these errors actually occurred under Gainey’s final year when he moved young defenceman Ryan Mcdonough to the Rangers in a multi-player swap to acquire the obscene contract of Scott Gomez. Mcdonough is now one of the brighter young blue-line talents in the conference and Gomez is a rather lame joke.
The drafting has been average, at best, for a decade and the departure of Andrei Kostitsyn at the trade deadline was a symbolic signing-off on a player who seemed to have the stuff of a signature attacker, but never became that player.
The Habs, like the Leafs, get a shot at a blue-chip prospect early in the entry draft this June, and just as the Leafs must do, the Canadiens must commit to the kind of longterm focus on drafting that appears to be the only way to succeed in the NHL. The freeagent market, in particular, has withered away to nearly nothing.
There’s a decent core in Carey Price, Max Pacioretty and P.K. Subban. Andrei Markov’s future as a front-line NHL defenceman is unclear. All in all, this will take some time.
Burke has taken so much flak for saying, when he was hired, that he had “no interest” in a five-year plan, leaving him wide open to charges he has over-promised and underdelivered.
The words the new king of Montreal hockey will use when he is hired will be intriguing.
He can promise greatness if he wants, but at his own risk. Goodness may have to do.