I really just think all this language stuff is overblown. It's hard for me to look at Martin, Carbonneau, Vigneault, Therrien, Julien, and Ducharme and conclude that the Canadiens have had worse coaches over the past 20 or so years than the average franchise in this league. Julien is a very good coach, Vigneault was excellent in Vancouver, I think Martin was solid, and the rest are varying degrees of mediocre to OK (Ducharme is trending towards the first true dud IMO but it's still early). Coaching hasn't been a point of excellence for this team, but I think a lot of teams have had a lot of worse coaches than Julien, Vigneault, and Martin over the past 20 years. Also disagree with the characterization of Martin as an exclusively defensive coach, when he had the horses in Ottawa that wasn't really the case.
I also think there's a degree of an advantage where the Canadiens are the only ones really competing in the Quebec market for coaches and GMs and get their pick of guys who are otherwise outsiders. I'm not really convinced that we're better off competing for the same WHL/OHL/NCAA circlejerk as the other 31 teams in the league than basically having our pick of QMJHL up and coming talent, nor do I think there's going to be inherently more tactical diversity hiring from that pool.
People keep going on about "the most competent candidate" as if there was a shelf stacked with exceptional candidates that the Habs are ignoring. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of management and coaching personalities in the NHL are mediocre and the Habs limiting themselves to hiring only from a smaller wing in that gallery of mediocrity does not really have any negative effect.
Yep. I agree with the principle of just hiring the best available person for the job, but I think it's drastically overblown as if it's the fatal flaw dooming this franchise. The GM market in the NHL is just extremely inefficient, there's one European GM, no women, only two European coaches ever, etc. and that's just looking at the "hockey people" talent pools which are ignored without even beginning to consider all the skilled managers running basketball/baseball/football/soccer teams or large companies.
There's only nine GMs in the league who aren't ex-pro hockey players, and a few of those guys are only GMs because they have famous dads. I don't think our strategy of hiring hockey lifers has been any worse than anyone else's strategy of hiring hockey lifers, and if we want to actually get "the best candidate for the job" I find it really hard to believe there isn't someone out there running a big company in Quebec or France or Francophone Africa or whatever who would be a better manager than the vast majority of ex-player GMs around the league who stopped going to school when they were 15. Recruiting from outside the group of hockey lifers (or even just making an effort to hire hockey lifers who are women or from Europe) would be far more efficient than opening up your search to just include Anglophone and Francophone hockey men.
