New GM Discussion Thread

[NotProkofievian]

The only reason why any french people give a shit about the Montreal Canadiens is because once upon a time they were the best. If Montreal were the runt of the original 6 litter nobody would care. Hockey is waning in popularity in Quebec currently. A lot of that probably has to do with the price of the game. I'd bet a little part of it is having f*** all to cheer for. I mean, look at this board. We have people here who remember the glory years who feel alienated and bored.

 

[Habs Icing]

The only reason why any french people give a **** about the Montreal Canadiens is because once upon a time they were the best. If Montreal were the runt of the original 6 litter nobody would care. Hockey is waning in popularity in Quebec currently. A lot of that probably has to do with the price of the game. I'd bet a little part of it is having **** all to cheer for. I mean, look at this board. We have people here who remember the glory years who feel alienated and bored.

Actually, you're not far off the mark. Before Dick Irwin and Frank Selke were parachuted into Montreal hockey was almost in its final death throes here. Even the "merger" of the Maroons with the Habs couldn't help stir up enough interest or business. The NHL and the bigwigs in Toronto were so worried about losing the Montreal franchise that they decided to send over Irwin and Selke to help re-establish the franchise. Little did they realize they were helping to create the Crown jewel of the league. However, A few more years of MB at the helm and we might be in the same situation again. Except this time no one might give two hoots if Montreal stays or goes. The league today can survive the end of the Habs.

 

[Doc McKenna]

I live in Western Canada and grew up here and I appreciate that I can watch interviews of coaches and GMs in both languages and watch games in French. Being able to have a uniquely francophone cultural institution run by francophone people is exceptionally unique and rare outside of QC. If you're from a French/Metis community outside of QC, it can still be important. It's part of the culture and history of the team and it matters to a lot of fans, media, ownership, and management.

If you want a team with no culture or traditions, tickets to games are really cheap in Florida.

Want to inspire french speaking fans to become great at hockey again. To push harder, to become the stars and managers of the future. Give them a team that wins every few generations, we are 2 gens away from our last stanley cup. And you wonder why quebec isn't putting out more stars. Start by having a winning team to look up to. Sure kids will always love hockey, but they aren't JUST inspired by someone native to their language. I guess kids in pittsburg simply can't identify with Malkin and Crosby because they aren't American. Must be only Kessel that will inspire kids of the future coming out of Pennsylvania.

 

[Doc McKenna]

Actually, you're not far off the mark. Before Dick Irwin and Frank Selke were parachuted into Montreal hockey was almost in its final death throes here. Even the "merger" of the Maroons with the Habs couldn't help stir up enough interest or business. The NHL and the bigwigs in Toronto were so worried about losing the Montreal franchise that they decided to send over Irwin and Selke to help re-establish the franchise. Little did they realize they were helping to create the Crown jewel of the league. However, A few more years of MB at the helm and we might be in the same situation again. Except this time no one might give two hoots if Montreal stays or goes. The league today can survive the end of the Habs.

Don't even need a history class when you look at how little interest the habs had when Gillette bought the team. Guy got it for pennies on the dollar. People weren't going to the games and that isn't even 20 years ago. Nevermind that few of the kids ever really return home to play before they are hasbeens . Drouin might be one of the rare exceptions. Bergevin never played for the habs, yet we are to believe he is steeped in habs culture just because he can almost speak french badly.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Molson might as well name his staff "Token" like the character on South Park because that's literally what it is at this point.

Frankly if I was a Francophone Canadiens fan I would be appalled at how Molson runs the team and his obvious pandering while continuing to employ someone unfit for the position.

I mean, really, the guy who just spoke at the last press conference, the guy that ran a promising core into the ground, is that really who you want representing your identity of francophone management talent in the NHL for the Montreal Canadiens?

 

[Draft]

With the parity as it is in the NHL, will the team ever really be the owners of a winning culture? We have to be losers to even start thinking about winning, we have a small window of time to win before contracts get bloated, and the playing style that worked one year could be out the next. The closest we've seen to a true winning culture in the modern NHL were the Red Wings (IMO) and that was because a couple of really late round picks became dominant NHL players.

I would love to dominate the league like in the past, but it's not a reality anymore and seems to be more based in luck than management skill. Hold onto the traditions and culture that have made the team what it is - try to be entertaining and competitive in the meantime. That's good business and good "cultural resource management."

 

[sterlinggranger]

It hasn't been talked about much, perhaps because it's like debating fairy tales, but the next GM will be a hero forever if he manages to reacquire Subban.

With all respect to Carey Price, Subban is probably still the most popular hockey player in Montreal. Perhaps his salary and much-less-than Eric Karlsson stats will make him not so impossible to acquire.

Bringing PK back would clean up a mean-spirited episode in Habs' history, correct what was really nothing more than an ego driven decision by a GM whose biggest accomplishment/claim to fame will forever be this catastrophic blunder.

PK was meant to win a cup in Montreal and see 76 hanging from the rafters.

 

[Habsawce]

It hasn't been talked about much, perhaps because it's like debating fairy tales, but the next GM will be a hero forever if he manages to reacquire Subban.

With all respect to Carey Price, Subban is probably still the most popular hockey player in Montreal. Perhaps his salary and much-less-than Eric Karlsson stats will make him not so impossible to acquire.

Bringing PK back would clean up a mean-spirited episode in Habs' history, correct what was really nothing more than an ego driven decision by a GM whose biggest accomplishment/claim to fame will forever be this catastrophic blunder.

PK was meant to win a cup in Montreal and see 76 hanging from the rafters.

Thikning about it still makes me sad. How they could trade him blows my damn mind. How you can sit there and say, "Yeah, the game has changed where PMD and mobility is key to winning on the back end" and then trade for Shea Weber. It's nuts. Insanity, really.

 

[groovejuice]

With the parity as it is in the NHL, will the team ever really be the owners of a winning culture? We have to be losers to even start thinking about winning, we have a small window of time to win before contracts get bloated, and the playing style that worked one year could be out the next. The closest we've seen to a true winning culture in the modern NHL were the Red Wings (IMO) and that was because a couple of really late round picks became dominant NHL players.

I would love to dominate the league like in the past, but it's not a reality anymore and seems to be more based in luck than management skill. Hold onto the traditions and culture that have made the team what it is - try to be entertaining and competitive in the meantime. That's good business and good "cultural resource management."

Great management in Detroit yielded great scouting which allowed them to draft Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Lidstrom and Federov. That's still pertinent today, even in a diluted league withering a bit from parity. Best people at every position. Should be a mantra, even in Montreal.

 

[WeThreeKings]

With the parity as it is in the NHL, will the team ever really be the owners of a winning culture? We have to be losers to even start thinking about winning, we have a small window of time to win before contracts get bloated, and the playing style that worked one year could be out the next. The closest we've seen to a true winning culture in the modern NHL were the Red Wings (IMO) and that was because a couple of really late round picks became dominant NHL players.

I would love to dominate the league like in the past, but it's not a reality anymore and seems to be more based in luck than management skill. Hold onto the traditions and culture that have made the team what it is - try to be entertaining and competitive in the meantime. That's good business and good "cultural resource management."

But that's the point, they are not holding onto the traditions and culture that made the team what it was.

When you think of the best draft picks, you're going to look at what Montreal did getting Roy, Robinson, Chelios, etc. where they did. They're no longer a team to envy when it comes to drafting and development.

When you think of the best general managers in the history of the game, you think of Sam Pollock, you don't think of Bergevin or Gauthier.

When you think of the best coaches in history, you think of Toe Blake and Scotty Bowman. Not Therrien or Julien.

The tradition and culture of the Montreal Canadiens was WINNING, it was SKILL, it was INNOVATION, it was identifying TALENT.

Now, they give you a coach and a general manager who speaks french and say, "watch us light a torch and wheel out the broken husk of our last true superstars." and say they are honoring the tradition and culture of the team. They are not. They are using it as a device to steal your money and keep your voices quiet. It's pandering and frankly, you should be insulted that they find the bare minimum qualified french speaking people and thrust them in your face and say "aren't you happy! We're TRYING". We had Julien and Therrien before, we knew they weren't good enough, but we brought them back.

You want good cultural resource management. Make your voices heard and don't demand the bare minimum. Demand that they get the guys like Guy Boucher and Julien Brisebois and KEEP THEM. Demand that it isn't enough to simply employ somebody from the QMJHL, but actually INVEST in francophones at the grass root level.

Geoff Molson is paying millions of dollars for Michel Therrien to NOT coach the Montreal Canadiens. Do you know what those millions of dollars could do if they were invested in local coaches who were showing promise in Quebec? Could you imagine if they actually developed and nurtured innovative hockey minds at those levels so that when the time came to hire a new coach, that they would actually have had a hand in developing multiple candidates to pick from, with years and years of data on their strengths and weaknesses?

Would some of those coaches get poached? Sure. But that's better than what we have now and we know that coaches never last indefinitely. Even Scotty Bowman got fired. If they're good and they come on the market like Babcock did, throw some money at them and secure them.

If half the outrage directed at Cunneyworth being an English speaking interim coach had been directly at Molson to f***ing do something to help Hockey Quebec, we could have made a goddamn difference by now.

 

[groovejuice]

Very good post. The scouting presence in Quebec seems very flimsy. There is only a single scout listed on Habs website and he covers Quebec and the Maritimes. That's an awful lot of teams and territory for a single person. There may possibly be others, but I can find no evidence of them.

There should be a team dedicated to finding and developing scouting, coaching, managing and playing talent in Quebec.

If Molson is so adamant about hiring francos, he should get off his ass and establish a network devoted to the development of education and training to accomplish this.

 

[Doc McKenna]

But that's the point, they are not holding onto the traditions and culture that made the team what it was.

When you think of the best draft picks, you're going to look at what Montreal did getting Roy, Robinson, Chelios, etc. where they did. They're no longer a team to envy when it comes to drafting and development.

When you think of the best general managers in the history of the game, you think of Sam Pollock, you don't think of Bergevin or Gauthier.

When you think of the best coaches in history, you think of Toe Blake and Scotty Bowman. Not Therrien or Julien.

The tradition and culture of the Montreal Canadiens was WINNING, it was SKILL, it was INNOVATION, it was identifying TALENT.

Now, they give you a coach and a general manager who speaks french and say, "watch us light a torch and wheel out the broken husk of our last true superstars." and say they are honoring the tradition and culture of the team. They are not. They are using it as a device to steal your money and keep your voices quiet. It's pandering and frankly, you should be insulted that they find the bare minimum qualified french speaking people and thrust them in your face and say "aren't you happy! We're TRYING". We had Julien and Therrien before, we knew they weren't good enough, but we brought them back.

You want good cultural resource management. Make your voices heard and don't demand the bare minimum. Demand that they get the guys like Guy Boucher and Julien Brisebois and KEEP THEM. Demand that it isn't enough to simply employ somebody from the QMJHL, but actually INVEST in francophones at the grass root level.

Geoff Molson is paying millions of dollars for Michel Therrien to NOT coach the Montreal Canadiens. Do you know what those millions of dollars could do if they were invested in local coaches who were showing promise in Quebec? Could you imagine if they actually developed and nurtured innovative hockey minds at those levels so that when the time came to hire a new coach, that they would actually have had a hand in developing multiple candidates to pick from, with years and years of data on their strengths and weaknesses?

Would some of those coaches get poached? Sure. But that's better than what we have now and we know that coaches never last indefinitely. Even Scotty Bowman got fired. If they're good and they come on the market like Babcock did, throw some money at them and secure them.

If half the outrage directed at Cunneyworth being an English speaking interim coach had been directly at Molson to ****ing do something to help Hockey Quebec, we could have made a goddamn difference by now.

Wanted to re quote this. I think this is what my point is as well. We need the french fan base to be inspired, not simply love the habs brand but to reach for the top. In just the 6 years of MB we could already be seeing the future stars and coaches arising. Drouin and Drais, shouldn't come along every few years, but should be around in every draft. Hockey canada now invest in coaches something that never happened when I was growing up. Most of the time it was half the coaches were the kids dads, and the other half were university students, or just a few of the same coaches that had been doing it for years. I think skill investment is under rated as most strive for wins.

House league should have practice with teammates more often than once a week (ontario perspective from 80's). all the teams I won on we had practice 3-5 times a week. ALL the kids on those teams were much improved by the end of the year. It's a lot to put on parents but many of those kids made the jump to travel off of those teams because they got the practice and guidance to make them better and increase the competition at the travel level. Sure you can play hockey in the yard with friends, but thats a lot different that spending time on drills and scrimage.

There is more that can be done, esp for the native communities, but we have a hard enough time getting arena upgrades(hence kraft hockeyville). Quebec actually has the climate that makes it easier to have open air ice. Where I live if you get 2 weeks of nice ice on your backyard rink then you put in a lot of time and effort and had some lucky weather.
IF southern states are starting to put out good hockey players and europe has players coming even from the likes of France and Germany, there is no reason we don't see more quebecois/NB/northern ontario players.
Click on the territory and sort by year entered and see the numbers for players that made the NHL each year. See how long their careers lasted. It is quite interesting. quantity and quality.
https://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/birthplaces.cgi

 

[Habsawce]

Very good post. The scouting presence in Quebec seems very flimsy. There is only a single scout listed on Habs website and he covers Quebec and the Maritimes. That's an awful lot of teams and territory for a single person. There may possibly be others, but I can find no evidence of them.

There should be a team dedicated to finding and developing scouting, coaching, managing and playing talent in Quebec.

If Molson is so adamant about hiring francos, he should get off his ass and establish a network devoted to the development of education and training to accomplish this.

As much crap as we like to give Pierre McGuire, this is one thing he's been very vocal about. I've heard him state multiple times that the Montreal Canadiens should be trailblazers in Quebec. He even stated that if he had gotten the job he was going to make sure they scouted Quebec better than anyone else by a country mile.

But hey, it only matters about local when it comes to management/coaching.

 

[Genesis76]

Ladys and Gentlemen I present to you the greatest thing that happend to the montreal canadiens since 93

Saku Koivu:

 

[Kojo]

Unless decent Gm's start learning french we are stuck with what we have.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Unless decent Gm's start learning french we are stuck with what we have.

No, until we get an owner with some f***ing balls or desire to more than pander to the francophone base.. we are stuck with what we have.

 

[vokiel]

There are perfectly fine francophone candidates available, the problem isn't the GM or whether they're the best or not. The problem is Molson is incompetent in his position of President and he will not hire anyone who he doesn't trust. Imagine a new GM that would make him look incompetent even to the most commoner.

This phenomenon isn't isolated or even new, it's the corporate cancer. People of low competences hire primarily to protect their positions and not to advanced their product, while people of higher competences quit companies to better their own positions as well.

 

[WeThreeKings]

There are perfectly fine francophone candidates available, the problem isn't the GM or whether they're the best or not. The problem is Molson is incompetent in his position of President and he will not hire anyone who he doesn't trust. Imagine a new GM that would make him look incompetent even to the most commoner.

This phenomenon isn't isolated or even new, it's the corporate cancer. People of low competences hire primarily to protect their positions and not to advanced their product, while people of higher competences quit companies to better their own positions as well.

No one is saying there aren't.

But say Sam Pollock was reincarnated and he didn't speak french. Our current hiring process would ensure we wouldn't consider him. Is that the way to run a successful organization?

 

[Genesis76]

No, until we get an owner with some ****ing balls or desire to more than pander to the francophone base.. we are stuck with what we have.

The french coach/GM/Roster/ Owner bs is an hypocrisy made up by a click in the french media a while back so they could keep their jobs.

I find it extremely racist from their part to entertain this thought today. Most people are bilingual now in Quebec and those who aren't are usually the less educated ones or much older generation. Considering that Quebec has a high level of education the uneducated people are a minority in our society. Specially in the greater region of Montreal.

(and by education I mean video games )

 

[WeThreeKings]

The french coach/GM/Roster/ Owner bs is an hypocrisy made up by a click in the french media a while back so they could keep their jobs.

I find it extremely racist from their part to entertain this thought today. Most people are bilingual now in Quebec and those who aren't are usually the less educated ones or much older generation. Considering that Quebec has a high level of education the uneducated people are a minority in our society. Specially in the greater region of Montreal.

I personally find it slightly offensive to me as a non francophone fan. And I would find it more offensive if I was an english Quebec resident because the message I get from the organization is, "there is a portion of this fan base that we value more highly than the rest."

 

[DAChampion]

I personally find it slightly offensive to me as a non francophone fan. And I would find it more offensive if I was an english Quebec resident because the message I get from the organization is, "there is a portion of this fan base that we value more highly than the rest."

The Habs are a business, not a social program.

Having good French Canadian players will increase profits, therefore, they will make an effort to have good French Canadian players.

 

[CauZuki]

The Habs are a business, not a social program.

Having good French Canadian players will increase profits, therefore, they will make an effort to have good French Canadian players.

Not if you trade a potential superstar Russian D for that asset.

Assuming equal skill , D has more value than a forward. (see: Jones/Larsson)

I really like Drouin and I have no issue with him being on our team , but if Sergachev ends up being a perrenial Norris winning D , it's far from a Win/Win trade.

Especially when Habs were in a position of strength where Tampa was going to lose a good roster player to the draft and Drouin has been on the trade block for over a year.

So it's essentially Sergachev + Tampa's roster player for a Drouin that he's been shopping for a while.

 

[WeThreeKings]

The Habs are a business, not a social program.

Having good French Canadian players will increase profits, therefore, they will make an effort to have good French Canadian players.

Winning will have more increase in profits.

 

[Genesis76]

It hasn't been talked about much, perhaps because it's like debating fairy tales, but the next GM will be a hero forever if he manages to reacquire Subban.

With all respect to Carey Price, Subban is probably still the most popular hockey player in Montreal. Perhaps his salary and much-less-than Eric Karlsson stats will make him not so impossible to acquire.

Bringing PK back would clean up a mean-spirited episode in Habs' history, correct what was really nothing more than an ego driven decision by a GM whose biggest accomplishment/claim to fame will forever be this catastrophic blunder.

PK was meant to win a cup in Montreal and see 76 hanging from the rafters.

Amen

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

With the parity as it is in the NHL, will the team ever really be the owners of a winning culture? We have to be losers to even start thinking about winning, we have a small window of time to win before contracts get bloated, and the playing style that worked one year could be out the next. The closest we've seen to a true winning culture in the modern NHL were the Red Wings (IMO) and that was because a couple of really late round picks became dominant NHL players.

I would love to dominate the league like in the past, but it's not a reality anymore and seems to be more based in luck than management skill. Hold onto the traditions and culture that have made the team what it is - try to be entertaining and competitive in the meantime. That's good business and good "cultural resource management."

Ffs

As if bad management practices don't exist.. smh