The view from Montreal:
NEW HABS COACH IN GAINEY'S OWN IMAGE
Jack Todd, The Gazette, June 8 2009
Quick now, let's play word association. What's the first thing that came to mind when you heard that Jacques Martin was the new coach of the Canadiens?
Boring, right? B-O-R-I-N-G with a capital BORE. Boring hockey. The charisma of boiled cauliflower. Gives good quote every other leap year, except when he has laryngitis. Makes Bob Gainey look loquacious.
Fairly or unfairly, that's the impression of Martin that was fostered when he presided over a pretty good hockey team in our nation's capital and again when his Florida Panthers missed the playoffs four years in a row: dull teams, a dull coach.
Of course, it's not entirely accurate. There was nothing dull about those Ottawa teams, while everything about Martin's Florida teams was dull.
To a great extent, coaches are like Formula One drivers, who are only as good as their cars. Who knew that Jenson Button was the next Michael Schumacher? Not Jacques Villeneuve, we know that much.
Mike Babc0ck? Great coach. Should head up Canada's Olympic team next February.
But how would Babc0ck fare if he was stuck with the New York Islanders?
Jacques Martin didn't get stupid the day he was hired by the Florida Panthers. He just went from a Mercedes to a Pontiac. Not a terrible team, just not good enough to make the playoffs - even with Roberto Luongo.
Gainey's highly conservative choice of Martin reflects Gainey's own personality.
It's more the absence of negatives (or what Gainey would consider negatives) than positives that won Martin the job. Martin won't blab. He won't say anything stupid in public. He won't embarrass the organization.
And he won't win a Stanley Cup. Given the current state of the Canadiens, it's almost as though a driver has signed on with an F1 team without knowing whether he'll end up behind the wheel of a Brawn or piloting Force India.
Martin said all sorts of good things about this team when he was hired. No surprise: a new coach isn't going to knock what he has before the first practice.
But even Gainey doesn't know what the 2009-10 edition of the Canadiens will look like.
On the management level, hiring Martin solidified two positions: Gainey hired a coach and he also confirmed, by implication, that he will return as GM and executive vice-president. At least one grizzled veteran journalist agreed with me when I suggested that Gainey would probably resign after the debacle of the 2008-09 season, but it appears that we don't understand the man as well as we thought we did.
Gainey will be back, in other words. His coach will have a wealth of experience and the fact Gainey was permitted to proceed with the hiring suggests that, while it may take months to iron out the details, it is possible that the new owner signed off on the hiring.
But who will he be coaching?
Martin has a reputation as a coach who is good with young players. We might suggest that a billygoat could have developed the young players he had in Ottawa, but the wrong coach in that situation could have led to a case of arrested development.
Here, the young players will be Martin's salvation or his albatross. At least three need to do some serious growing up: the Kostitsyn brothers and thoroughbred goaltender Carey Price. A couple of others, like Tomas Plekanec and Mike Komisarek, need to find themselves again after off seasons - although it is at least possible that Komisarek will find himself in Long Island or Toronto.
Then there is Alex Kovalev, the only possible source of the Sovietsky Sport story that had the Canadiens offering him a deal worth between $6 million and $7.5 million a year while dumping Saku Koivu and making Kovalev the captain. That's assuming, of course, that the story had a source, which didn't prevent TSN and other media outlets from running with it.
If it's true, then Martin will have a captain who has ripped his own team in print, who sulked because he wasn't wearing the C and who shows up when it suits him. With that kind of leadership, Martin may wish he had stayed with the Panthers.
His biggest problem, however, is between the pipes. After allowing Price to, in effect, fire his own goalie coach in Roland Melanson, the Canadiens have reached the limit in terms of coddling this young man. He was handed a job he did not deserve before he was ready, turned loose on the town without a steadying older influence (see Sidney Crosby living in Mario Lemieux's house and Evgeni Malkin with Sergei Gonchar) and then kept in the lineup night after night long after the job should have belonged to Jaroslav Halak.
Then, to add insult to injury, Gainey effectively blamed the fans and the media when, during that sweep at the hands of the Bruins, they had seen enough.
In Ottawa, Martin won without a goalie. In Florida, he couldn't win with a great one. In Montreal - well, it remains to be seen. But when the goalie falters, the coach tends to walk the plank. Think José Theodore and Claude Julien, Price and Guy Carbonneau.
It's true, as Stu Cowan wrote yesterday, that Martin's defence-oriented system should benefit Price. But he also has to get through to the young man, convince him that success at this level requires almost unimaginable effort in addition to talent, turn him into the thoroughbred Gainey believes he drafted.
If Martin can do all that, he may have more success here than we anticipate.
Sadly, given all the uncertainty surrounding this team, we can't foresee much that will set Martin apart from the others caught in this revolving door.
If past experience is any indication, Martin will have one good season when this team will get as far as the second round, no farther. Then he'll have a disappointing season. Then the wheels will fall off, Gainey will fire him midway through the season and take over behind the bench once more and we'll begin this whole dispiriting process again.
I sincerely hope that is not how things work out. But I also can't think of one good reason why Martin's fate should be any different than that of Mario Tremblay, Alain Vigneault, Michel Therrien, Claude Julien or Guy Carbonneau.
They all had some success. None made it past the second round of the playoffs.
All were fired.
So it goes.
jacktodd46@yahoo.com
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