Montreal Canadiens fire GM Pierre Gauthier, advisor Bob Gainey on team’s dismal form-NHL News
Montreal Canadiens, placed at the bottom of the Eastern Conference in the current National Hockey League (NHL) regular season, has started hammering down some of its officials, in a blame game of its failure to reach the playoffs.
Pierre Gauthier, Canadiens' general manager, has become the first scapegoat of their poor showing on the ice during the season and the management has sounded their intentions of cleansing of the squad at certain positions in the offseason.
Furthermore, they have parted ways with the team advisor, Bob Gainey, who had been succeeded by Gauthier for the GM slot a year earlier.
Gainey and Gauthier are described to be the best friends and their axing at the same time was very much seen in the making at the time the team kept on performing poorly on the ice.
The GM had introduced certain changes and came up with different schemes to put back Canadiens on winning ways, but all those measures failed to produce desired results.
Following confirmation of Montreal Canadiens’ exit from the playoff race, the owner, Geoff Molson, did not take much time to decide who will be leaving the team first, and he turns out to be the GM.
According to the owner:
"We need to remember that our fans want us to win, period. Our organisational culture is to support and adopt this passion for victory. Nothing else matters."
He added:
"Everyone in this organization, including our players, expected better.”
It is not just their failure to reach the playoffs, the Montreal Canadiens were unable to show consistency in form and ended up far below the par throughout.
The owner is particularly dissatisfied with the fact that the players were unable to pull themselves together at the time they needed the most.
Canadiens with 73 points are with the second lowest score on the league’s points table of the Eastern and Western Conference.
In the wake of the poor performance that the team has shown in the regular season no one is surprised by the hasty move of the owner to fire the GM and advisor in one go.
However, they are still without with an answer to their question whether the team will be able to improve and become victorious as a result of these and some other changes expected in the future.
The team had already made such changes in the past but could not achieve much out of it.
With a couple of games left in the regular season this year and playoffs phase around the corner, it will be too early to comment on the future prospects of the team.
They must be hoping for an improved form in the next year, and ultimately being able to achieve better results.
Tags: