The Canadiens have called a news conference for 4 p.m. this afternoon to make a "major announcement" regarding the team's hockey management, which would lead me to believe the Bob Gainey era has now ended.
That's not confirmed, but with the trade deadline approaching and the team considering making a decision regarding its goaltender of the future, I wouldn't be stunned if Gainey was poliutlely asked to resign.
Again, I'm just speculating, but a "major" announcement about hockey management could be little else other than that.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: TSN is reporting that Pierre Gauthier will take over for Gainey on an interim basis. Discuss.
Monday, February 8, 2010
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9 comments:
I've only recently started to fell this way, but if it's true...
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
He had his chance, and this season's mediocrity after the full rebuild was the final straw for me.
He came to the organization that looked to him to give it stability and a firm direction. Now he leaves a slow sinking ship without a rudder.
Good luck to the next man in charge.
Before we all trash the man maybe we should ask ourselves why BG would leave in mid season amid rumors that he tried to land Kovalchuk just days ago.
Let's hope their isn't another reason other than the performance of the team - ie: health concerns.
jkr, with that I can agree 100%.
A valiant man who has made some odd moves since the summer. There is a lot playing out behind the curtains. The Molsons are going one way, and Bob had other ideas, or maybe, had run out of ideas. It's hard to defend the UFA losses over the last 3-4 years in which we got nothing in return. Waddell could have done the same with Kovalchuk, just let him finish the season with Atlanta, after all, they could surely use his services as part of their playoff push. That's what Bob did with Souray, Koivu, Kovalev... It seems that his playbook became outdated and he didn't have it in him to write a new one.
Good luck Bob.
I'm not his biggest fan but neither am I his biggest critic.
This team is imo, two or three years from being a top tier team if the right decisions are made, which is why I think Gainey did a much better job then most people think he did.
But I do agree it is time for changes to be made.
Well, it was going to happen sooner or later. I am a Gainey defender but I didn't really expect that he would stay on before this year, so this is not surprising though the timing of the move is a little odd. He certainly leaves the team in a much better shape than the one he inherited, and if Gauthier does as much improvement to the team in his tenure, we may yet see a Cup in our lifetimes.
I'm afraid I don't know enough about Gauthier to speak much of an opinion. He has been associated with franchies that went on to win big in the past, so I have no doubt he's qualified, though his tenure as director of pro scouting for Montreal is not very reassuring. One thing I do intensely dislike about him however is that he and Martin have known each other for a long while, so Gauthier is likely to retain Martin for some time, perhaps longer than he should. I expect the team to stagnate as long as Martin is at the helm, so that's bad news right there.
Then again I didn't expect Martin to get replaced for a year or two, so no change there really. Just that I had hope he might get moved up, and now I'm worried he might be allowed to stick around well past his due date.
The way the Habs have played the last couple of games and comments from certain players like Markhov and younger Kostitsyn sugested to me something was about to happen that the players that wanted to stay here didn't want to see happen.
When Bon Gainey uses words like vision and long-term commitment is there any other meaning than complete overhaul ahead?
I am going to miss Bob Gainey. He did a very good job for our team.
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