Ex-Habs coach Dominique Ducharme rips team executives for his dismissal

It was the season from hell for the Montreal Canadiens, who are barely one year removed from their first Stanley Cup Finals appearance since 1993. 

Already massively put behind the 8-ball before the 2021-22 NHL Season even began thanks to the departures of both former MVP goaltender Carey Price and Norris Trophy winning defenseman Shea Weber, the Habs stumbled to an 8-30-7 record before they decided to make a major personnel change. Head coach Dominique Ducharme was terminated after completing not even one full year of the 3-year pact he signed following the surprise run to the Finals last year. 

The former bench boss hasn't talked much about his untimely dismissal, until now. During an interview with The Athletic, Ducharme pointed the finger at executive Vice President Jeff Gorton and general manager Kent Hughes, both of whom he feels didn't give him a fair shake. 

"That's the part that hurts me, or disappoints me the most, that I didn't get a chance to sit down with them and tell them how I saw hockey," he said.

"If the plan was to lose as many games as possible and have the young guys play, I would have liked that to know because I would have taken a different approach with them. I was trying to squeeze everywhere to get some results. I would see teams that had games cancelled because five of their players had COVID. We had ten, plus another eight who were injured, and we were playing the same..."

The Habs replaced Ducharme with former Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers forward Martin St. Louis, who has subsequently been inked to a three year extension. But for Ducharme, he feels his fate was decided when the team parted ways with a popular team executive. 

"I think when Marc left, it was already decided," he continued when referring to former GM Marc Bergevin, who was terminated in late November of 2021. 

"We were seen all the time as the team that went to the Stanley Cup finals and couldn't win. The change of coach sent the message to the fans and players that we rebuild, we trust the young. The result was no longer serious, Martin could afford to talk about moral victories. If I talked about moral victories, I would have been picked up."