Summer 2021. The world is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The citizen has lost his bearings for more than a year. The National Hockey League (NHL), like the rest of professional sport in America, is relaunched, but in two stages.
In the United States, buildings accommodate as many spectators as the number of seats allows. Not in Canada, not in Quebec. However, sports fans can at least watch their team live to find pleasure and comfort.
In Montreal, Marc Bergevin smells a good deal. He knows that his defensive stud, his captain Shea Weber, doesn’t have much longer. His body fails him and the veteran warrior is worn out. He also knows that his captain’s best friend, goalkeeper Carey Price, is also finishing.
Bergevin rushes headlong, telling himself that with the changes to the COVID calendar, his chances could become excellent.
Bergevin completes veteran warrior purchases and rentals with character. He signed Corey Perry and Tyler Toffoli before the start of the season, he acquired veteran Jake Allen as well as Josh Anderson and Joel Edmundson, then he added Eric Staal along the way.
At the end of February, the CEO doesn’t like what he sees. He relieves Claude Julien of his duties and entrusts the reins of the team to Dominique Ducharme on an interim basis.
Entering the playoffs through the back door, the CH is in trouble in the first round, trailing 1-3 against the Leafs. The veterans stand up at the invitation of Ducharme, who gives them space. The rest, we know it.
Montreal fails at the final stage, but these four rounds of series have been the greatest balm to the heart of the fan still semi-cloistered in a pandemic.
The day after was painful. Disagreement between Bergevin and Geoff Molson over the future of the GM who ended up losing his position, replaced by the Jeff Gorton-Kent Hughes duo.
It’s a catastrophic 2021-2022 season and Hughes is placing his pawns. In February, he relieved Dom Ducharme and took Martin St-Louis. A new era begins.
The future is bright and the team is beginning a reconstruction for the first time in its rich history. A word that owner Molson will end up saying 18 months after the big clean-up of his hockey sector.
We are in season 3 of Gorton and Hughes’ grand plan. Far from maturity, the young team firmly believed that it would be in the “mix” this season and therefore certainly making progress compared to the two previous seasons. And yet…
After 14 games in 2022-2023, CH had seven wins and 15 points, en route to a 68-point season. After 14 matches in 2023-2024, CH progressed with seven victories, but 16 points en route to an increase of eight points in the standings.
This season, Montreal has only four victories after 14 games, a decline of three over the previous two seasons. At this rate, the team will amass just 59 ranking points.
It would be easy to take aim at St. Louis and point out that since he took office, the team is playing .433 with a record of 79-108-28 and that its differential is atrocious at minus-165.
It would be easy, but dishonest. Because, put in a context of reconstruction, these figures seem very acceptable, even normal.
However, this year in year 3 of the big plan, the team’s record, its performance and its disconcerting way of losing matches forces me to conclude that, in fact, it is barely in a better position than three years ago when everything was adrift because, we shouted in chorus, of Bergevin and Ducharme.
