Canadiens: Coaches Julien, Muller fired amid losing stretch
Marc Bergevin is hoping a new bench boss can get through to the slumping Montreal Canadiens.
The general manager fired head coach Claude Julien and associate coach Kirk Muller early Wednesday and promoted assistant coach Dominique Ducharme to interim head coach.
“It’s not fun. It’s a tough part of my job. To walk into these two men’s room this morning, it was not easy,” Bergevin said.
The move followed the Canadiens’ 5-4 shootout loss to the Senators in Ottawa on Tuesday, Montreal’s third loss in a row.
Julien said after the game that his team needed to play with more confidence. “That’s what we’re struggling with right now and it’s showing in all parts of our game,” he said.
The Canadiens (9-5-4) got off to a hot start this year, posting a 5-1-2 record in January and giving the Maple Leafs a run for top spot in the North Division. The team has faltered recently, however, falling to fourth. In a pandemic-shortened 56-game season, Bergevin said he didn’t want to wait to make a change behind the bench.
“The hard thing to watch is the swing from being a really good hockey team that was playing with pace, was engaged, playing to our identity, which is speed, then going to the other side to a team that’s looking for anything,” he said. “We’re chasing our tail, we’re chasing the puck, we’re not in sync. And that was frustrating for me.
“If the message is the same and they’re acting differently, then change needs to be made.”
Bergevin said he wanted to give Julien and Muller an “honest try” to fix things over the squad’s recent six-day break.
“After that week off, I thought we would really come out flying, refocused, re-energized and back in sync. And I didn’t see that.”
Putting Ducharme in charge gives the players a “different voice,” Bergevin said.
Ducharme joined the Canadiens coaching staff in April 2018 after 10 seasons in the Quebec junior league. He won the Memorial Cup with Halifax in 2012-13 and has twice been Canada’s head coach at the world junior championship, winning silver in 2017 and gold in 2018.
The Canadiens promoted Alex Burrows to assistant coach.