With all the talk of the players and GM, thought it would be good to bump the coaching thread.
IMHO, i think coaching is thing is the most important thing for the Habs to return to glory. We don't have the caliber of top end players as Tampa, Toronto and Buffalo. Possibly in the same boat as detroit & Florida. Things can change, but as of right now we're not winning strictly with the talents of our players.
When the Habs were beating the Bruins in the early 2000s, I think it had more to do with coaching.
I see three main things the coaches need to do
1 - come up with a strategy to optimize the personnel we do have
2 - communication- instill a team mentality where everyone is playing for one another.
3 - develop the talent we do have properly
That being said. Is Claude the guy to do it? Is he too old school? How much will Bouchard and Ducharme help?
Its hard to get excited about this team these days, but these two guys give me hope. I just hope they aren't handcuffed too much by julien and bergevin.
I think CJ is a good coach but never thought he was right for the team. He prefers a collapsing zone system and at least last year, with all the turnovers in personnel, players used to man-to-man coverage and inexperience of a lot of players, this worked terribly. Therrien wasn't too different in his system but his wingers did commit more to pressuring the point. This meant tenured players had to unlearn years of MT teachings (yes, an oxymoron).
This year has even more new faces. With CJ demanding a lot from his forwards, especially his centers, I'm not sure we have the tools to do it. I commented in another thread I don't see this as a team being built for the way CJ wants to play. Players should be played to their strengths, and if CJ wants/needs 200-ft players, we should have gotten those instead of shoe-horning skilled offensive players into roles they won't succeed in.
I get it, everyone does have to play defence as this isn't old-time 80's hockey anymore, but CJ has to stop complaining in PUBLIC interviews that he doesn't have a Bergeron on the team.