It didn’t come during the team’s bye week, but after yet another lopsided loss, and with Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes settled into his role, the team has opted to make a change behind the bench.
Multiple reports, including JC Lajoie, Frank Seravalli, and Pierre LeBrun are reporting that Dominique Ducharme has been relieved of his duties as the team’s head coach.
Dominique Ducharme has been relieved of his head coaching duties.https://t.co/wSdkwrOMXC
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) February 9, 2022
The Habs have a record of 8-30-7 this season, and overall Ducharme has a regular season record of 23-46-14 behind the bench since taking over for Claude Julien last season. The run to the Stanley Cup Final, where the team went 10-6 under Ducharme, earned him a three-year contract extension, which removed the interim label. Ducharme missed six playoff games due to a positive COVID-19 test, and the team went 3-3 in those games.
With this season spiralling out of control, and no signs of improvement, Hughes felt his first major move as the team’s GM would be to make the coaching change.
Martin St. Louis was announced as interim head coach later in the day.
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Martin St. Louis named interim head coach of the Montreal Canadiens
The status of assistant coaches Alex Burrows, Éric Gravel, Mario Leblanc, Trevor Letowski, Éric Raymond and Luke Richardson remains unchanged.
