Who will be the next Habs coach?

[JianYang]

except that's not the reason, sure the language requirement is there but that's no reason to recycle coaches... I mean, other teams are not recycling coaches all the time. We kept Captain Kirk for way too long even though he never said more than merci in french.

Muller was an assistant here, and then left on his own terms when he got the head gig in Carolina. He came back as an associate coach a few years later.

Technically, he was never let go by the habs until this season.

 

[Runner77]

We kept Captain Kirk for way too long even though he never said more than merci in french.

« Buckets. »

If Captain Kirk only had the reflex to use the above word, he wouldn’t be remembered as a one-word gratitude pony.

Repeat after me, Captain Kirk: « mercy buckets! »

 

[MolleSon]

Bargain still has one year on his contract. I seriously doubt Molleson is willing to pay 2 GM salaries + 2 coaches as they also have to pay Julien's 5m$ next year. So its going to be Bargain with Dom Ducharme, like it or not.

 

[azcanuck]

except that's not the reason, sure the language requirement is there but that's no reason to recycle coaches... I mean, other teams are not recycling coaches all the time. We kept Captain Kirk for way too long even though he never said more than merci in french.

english speaking assistant coaches seem to be fine.

If the language requirement is indeed there how can you argue that all they have done is recycle the same old group of guys?

 

[Kojo]

They should at least promote our savior before the next season. Send him back to Laval but with a hefty contract.

 

[Archijerej]

It's so embarrassing to be a fan of an organization that recycles old coach's simply because they are French. Too many things take a backseat to winning in this organization.
I'd love to see Gallant. Not Torts.
Bouchard seems like young blood at least.
Patrick Roy? Well he's french.

I don't think that's the reason for our struggles. Both Jacques Martin and Claude Julien were legitimately above average NHL coaches. Same with Alain Vigneault. Even Therrien, whom I didn't like, was not nearly as bad as the common opinion has it.

Carbonneau was clearly not qualified, but that's the only obvious hiring mistake I can think of in the last 20+ years.

Even Ducharme might eventually turn out to be a good NHL coach. He had as strong a pedigree as anyone coming from junior hockey, but was thrown into an extremely difficult situation.

 

[Forsead]

It's so embarrassing to be a fan of an organization that recycles old coach's simply because they are French. Too many things take a backseat to winning in this organization.
I'd love to see Gallant. Not Torts.
Bouchard seems like young blood at least.
Patrick Roy? Well he's french.

I don't think the language requirement is a problem for finding a good coach. I mean 9 of the top 25 coachs in wins in the NHL are/were bilingual for the top of my head (Scotty Bowman, Joel Quenneville, Al Arbour, Alain Vigneault, Claude Julien, Jacques Lemaire, Jacques Martin, Marc Crawford and Pat Burns). That doesn't even include good current/former coach like Bob Hartley, Jacques Demers, Guy Boucher, Larry Robinson, Claude Ruel, Patrick Roy, Pascal Vincent and Joel Bouchard or mediocre candidates like Bob Gainey (as a coach), Michel Therrien, Michel Bergeron and Pierre Page.

Joel Bouchard seems like the best candidate even not looking for language. Unless they want to go with a guy with experience, but that's pretty much what they did in the last few years.

 

[azcanuck]

I don't think the language requirement is a problem for finding a good coach. I mean 9 of the top 25 coachs in wins in the NHL are/were bilingual for the top of my head (Scotty Bowman, Joel Quenneville, Al Arbour, Alain Vigneault, Claude Julien, Jacques Lemaire, Jacques Martin, Marc Crawford and Pat Burns). That doesn't even include good current/former coach like Bob Hartley, Jacques Demers, Guy Boucher, Larry Robinson, Claude Ruel, Patrick Roy, Pascal Vincent and Joel Bouchard or mediocre candidates like Bob Gainey (as a coach), Michel Therrien, Michel Bergeron and Pierre Page.

Joel Bouchard seems like the best candidate even not looking for language. Unless they want to go with a guy with experience, but that's pretty much what they did in the last few years.

Oh you predict the future, Thanks.

I don't think that's the reason for our struggles. Both Jacques Martin and Claude Julien were legitimately above average NHL coaches. Same with Alain Vigneault. Even Therrien, whom I didn't like, was not nearly as bad as the common opinion has it.

Carbonneau was clearly not qualified, but that's the only obvious hiring mistake I can think of in the last 20+ years.

Even Ducharme might eventually turn out to be a good NHL coach. He had as strong a pedigree as anyone coming from junior hockey, but was thrown into an extremely difficult situation.

Yes there are good candidates that are French but you are still not considering the entire pool of available coach's. When any business seeks talent they are limited if they create artificial hiring requirements.
But you're points are valid about some good french coach's. Clearly the problems are higher in this organization.

 

[ECWHSWI]

english speaking assistant coaches seem to be fine.

If the language requirement is indeed there how can you argue that all they have done is recycle the same old group of guys?

Point is, theres more than 2 or 3 qualified french speaking coaches in the world.

 

[azcanuck]

Point is, theres more than 2 or 3 qualified french speaking coaches in the world.

point is there are hundreds of candidates when you remove any artificial language barrier. An organization is hampering itself by limiting the pool.

 

[ECWHSWI]

Evry org limits the pool, none are interviweing every good candidate.

point is there are hundreds of candidates when you remove any artificial language barrier. An organization is hampering itself by limiting the pool.

G

 

[azcanuck]

Evry org limits the pool, none are interviweing every good candidate.

G

limiting it to a language is a different version of that argument and one no NHL franchise outside of Montreal does.

 

[Captain Mountain]

Yes there are good candidates that are French but you are still not considering the entire pool of available coach's. When any business seeks talent they are limited if they create artificial hiring requirements.
But you're points are valid about some good french coach's. Clearly the problems are higher in this organization.

Businesses generally limit their candidates by creating artificial hiring requirements because if they don't, they'll have so many candidates that they'll be unable to properly consider all the candidates.

And all NHL teams have artificial hiring requirements for coaches and front office roles.

The Habs bilingual requirement for head coaches isn't a major issue since even with that limitation, they have a large enough qualified pool to make choices. Especially if they ignore other artificial hiring requirements.

The issue with the Habs is the GM bilingual requirement, because they have real issues there/ Compounded by how old fashioned they are.

Their in-house analytics staff consists of their cap guy, a sports science guy and a video coach (there's a deep pool from Quebec of people who do this, they outsource this kind of work to SportlogIQ).



They have a bunch of hockey/fitness guys in charge. They clearly place more emphasis on physical tools relative to other organizations.

They can be more creative in hiring practices too. The Leafs just hired Danielle Goyette to be their director of player development. Would the Habs ever do something like that? Even though she's perfectly bilingual?

 

[azcanuck]

Businesses generally limit their candidates by creating artificial hiring requirements because if they don't, they'll have so many candidates that they'll be unable to properly consider all the candidates.

And all NHL teams have artificial hiring requirements for coaches and front office roles.

The Habs bilingual requirement for head coaches isn't a major issue since even with that limitation, they have a large enough qualified pool to make choices. Especially if they ignore other artificial hiring requirements.

The issue with the Habs is the GM bilingual requirement, because they have real issues there/ Compounded by how old fashioned they are.

Their in-house analytics staff consists of their cap guy, a sports science guy and a video coach (there's a deep pool from Quebec of people who do this, they outsource this kind of work to SportlogIQ).



They have a bunch of hockey/fitness guys in charge. They clearly place more emphasis on physical tools relative to other organizations.

They can be more creative in hiring practices too. The Leafs just hired Danielle Goyette to be their director of player development. Would the Habs ever do something like that? Even though she's perfectly bilingual?

I find it interesting their is so much push back over criticizing the Habs policy of French only.

After all they say "all organizations have artificial hiring requirements". And what are those beyond using a generic term?

The Habs are way behind the eight ball with this very limiting requirement. It reduces the pool significantly.

Can anyone come up with any of these "artificial hiring requirements" that limit an organization to the degree it does the Habs?

 

[Captain Mountain]

I find it interesting their is so much push back over criticizing the Habs policy of French only.

After all they say "all organizations have artificial hiring requirements". And what are those beyond using a generic term?

The Habs are way behind the eight ball with this very limiting requirement. It reduces the pool significantly.

Can anyone come up with any of these "artificial hiring requirements" that limit an organization to the degree it does the Habs?

I've criticized the Habs about their bilingual hiring policy for HC and GM. A lot. I just don't think its relevant because there's a deep enough qualified pool that it doesn't really matter. And the drama around hiring a unilingual coach is probably worse than just choosing the 4-5 bilingual coaching candidates that are serious coaching candidates in other markets as well.

As for other artificial hiring requirements:

One of:
-HC/AC experience in the NHL
-High end HC experience in the AHL/CHL/College

with NHL playing experience is a plus.

Generally its not a big deal to have a bilingual requirement on top of that. Habs issues the last few seasons haven't been coaching, its been management and player development.

 

[azcanuck]

.

One of:
-HC/AC experience in the NHL
-High end HC experience in the AHL/CHL/College

with NHL playing experience is a plus.

Generally its not a big deal to have a bilingual requirement on top of that. Habs issues the last few seasons haven't been coaching, its been management and player development.

All NHL teams have a degree of what I bolded. What separates Montreal is limiting coaching to french speakers. That's a vast difference and although you have an opinion that it doesnt matter I would offer differently.
This summer Gallant is available. But Montreal wont interview him. Torts is another experienced coach. Nope.

It will go back to the recycled garbage and maybe some new blood like Bouchard (which is okay, he's qualified).

If you want to say WINNING is the most important parameter for your organization then stop with this french only nonsense. Otherwise just admit you have qualifiers before winning.

 

[BLONG7]

If the AHL has no playoffs, will the Habs bring Joel Bouchard up to the big club for the playoffs?

 

[sandviper]

If the AHL has no playoffs, will the Habs bring Joel Bouchard up to the big club for the playoffs?

I don't think that would be a bad idea, assuming there's no rule against it. Even if he can't be behind the bench, press box coach and/or practices I think would help but ultimately it's DD who runs the show and I think Bouchard would know well enough to insert any of his own ideas if they aren't aligned with how DD wants to run the show.

 

[MadMslm]

If the AHL has no playoffs, will the Habs bring Joel Bouchard up to the big club for the playoffs?

They used to be four behind the bench (Muller, Julien, Ducharme and Richardson) so it could be a welcome possibility. It would be good to have a motivator like him out there especially in a emotionally driven moment like the playoffs.

I’d even say we would have a real coach but whatever maybe Ducharme was also waiting for the playoffs to step up...

Nice idea

 

[Captain Mountain]

All NHL teams have a degree of what I bolded. What separates Montreal is limiting coaching to french speakers. That's a vast difference and although you have an opinion that it doesnt matter I would offer differently.
This summer Gallant is available. But Montreal wont interview him. Torts is another experienced coach. Nope.

It will go back to the recycled garbage and maybe some new blood like Bouchard (which is okay, he's qualified).

If you want to say WINNING is the most important parameter for your organization then stop with this french only nonsense. Otherwise just admit you have qualifiers before winning.

That's my point. Those parameters probably don't need to exist. And its not a vast difference.

And you're probably overestimating the importance of coaching. There really isn't an argument that Gallant or Torts are better coaches than a guy like Julien. They're all "recycled garbage" if you're really pushing the narrative.

And if you want new blood (which the Habs probably want after going with Vets the last two times), Patrick Roy (who I don't want), Pascal Vincent, Ben Groulx and Joel Bouchard are bilingual coaches that are going to be seriously considered by a lot of teams. Louis Robitaille and Andre Tourigny are also recognized as up and comers in wider NHL circles.

Its just not a major issue. Management is the real area of concern, because the bilingual group of people with upper management experience is nearly non-existent.

 

[ECWHSWI]

limiting it to a language is a different version of that argument and one no NHL franchise outside of Montreal does.

TML. are pretty much limiting their choice for HC to Ontario boys.

They're not saying it's a requirement to get the job, but if you're american or european, your chances are very close to 0.

 

[Miller Time]

All NHL teams have a degree of what I bolded. What separates Montreal is limiting coaching to french speakers. That's a vast difference and although you have an opinion that it doesnt matter I would offer differently.
This summer Gallant is available. But Montreal wont interview him. Torts is another experienced coach. Nope.

It will go back to the recycled garbage and maybe some new blood like Bouchard (which is okay, he's qualified).

If you want to say WINNING is the most important parameter for your organization then stop with this french only nonsense. Otherwise just admit you have qualifiers before winning.

If the only qualifier before "winning" (or professional excellence) was bilingualism... We'd be fine.

The cronyism MB & Molson have saddled the organization with is the far more detrimental practice...

 

[Miller Time]

TML. are pretty much limiting their choice for HC to Ontario boys.

They're not saying it's a requirement to get the job, but if you're american or european, your chances are very close to 0.

? Babcock is from Saskatoon

 

[ECWHSWI]

? Babcock is from Saskatoon

Babcock was born in Manitouwadge, Ontario, and grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

doesnt change the fact the VAST majority of TML coaches are/were from ontario. and I dont see them hiring a lot of guys from QC.

 

[Vachon23]