Bergevin: A new voice was necessary

MONTREAL - With just 38 games remaining in the regular season and his hockey club failing to meet expectations, general manager Marc Bergevin felt compelled to switch things up.

By no means was parting ways with Claude Julien and Kirk Muller an easy decision, but Bergevin was adamant it was necessary to get the Canadiens back on track before losing any more ground in the North Division standings.
Enter interim head coach Dominique Ducharme and Alex Burrows, who are tasked with helping to right the ship of a team that is winless in three straight and has only two victories in their last eight outings.
"The effort was always there. It proves that Claude didn't lose his locker room, but I saw a team that was lost, that was lacking in terms of their sense of direction," said Bergevin via Zoom on Wednesday afternoon from Winnipeg. "These things happen in pro sports. Coaches keep on giving instructions, but after a while, the message doesn't get through anymore. Based on what I saw over the last week, and with what happened last year, in a short season, I made the decision to make a change."

There were several specific deficiencies in the Canadiens' overall game that pushed Bergevin to act without any further delay.
Both the power play and penalty kill, which rank 20th and 22nd in the NHL, respectively, are primary concerns, as is the team's subpar 3-5-0 record at the Bell Centre.
The fact that his players have amassed the third-most penalty minutes in the League behind Vancouver and Ottawa isn't sitting well with him either.
But the bottom line is that Bergevin no longer recognized the team that stormed out of the gates in mid-January, blitzed their opponents, scored at will and strung together seven wins in their first 10 games.
"When we play at the top of our game, we're killing plays, we're moving the puck, we're supporting the puck, we're getting through the neutral zone with speed. That's when our team's at our best, and that wasn't happening right now," stressed Bergevin. "The hard thing to watch is the swing from being a really good hockey team that was playing with pace, was engaged and was playing to their identity, which is speed, and then going the other way where we were a team that was looking for anything. We were chasing our tails, we were chasing the puck, we were not in sync. That was frustrating for me. Sometimes you could blame injuries, but we had none."

Remember that the 55-year-old former defenseman set the bar extra high for this group when training camp began, especially with the offseason additions of veteran forwards Tyler Toffoli, Josh Anderson and Corey Perry, defenseman Joel Edmundson, and goaltender Jake Allen to share the workload with Carey Price.
It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that Bergevin addressed the team privately after Julien and Muller were relieved of their duties, and he basically put the onus on them to return to form under Ducharme's leadership.
"I was clear. The bar is high. I have confidence in them, but all players who wear the Montreal Canadiens uniform must give more," insisted Bergevin. "I said that everyone here, to a man, needs to be better, needs to raise his game, every single guy. That was my message. That's what needs to be done."
Why Ducharme?
When Bergevin contemplated installing a new bench boss, he was sold on Ducharme immediately.
Citing the 47-year-old Joliette, QC native's modern approach and extensive resume, Bergevin considered him the ideal candidate to take the helm ahead of an important two-game set against the Jets.
"Quarantine or no quarantine, Dom was my guy from the time I made my decision. The reason why is that he's a new model of coach, the young coach who came a long way. He had success at the Junior level, had success at the World Junior level," mentioned Bergevin. "I feel that the new voice, that's what this team needs, and also he's a good communicator. Lots of times that's what the players, I feel, based on what I saw, that's what they're looking for."

Hired as an assistant coach with Montreal in April 2018, Ducharme certainly has a good sense of where his troops' heads are at right now, so he'll hit the ground running at Thursday's morning skate.
No doubt that familiarity will speed up the adjustment process significantly, which hopefully brings out the very best in the Canadiens at Bell MTS Place and beyond.
Bergevin is counting on it.
"I have a lot of confidence in Dominique and what he'll bring to the team," praised Bergevin, who confirmed that Ducharme would be in charge through the end of the season before a decision on his status was officially made. "I believe he'll be able to bring our players to the level they were at before, where we can be more consistent in the way we work."