Dominique Ducharme suspected that his time was running out at the head of the Montreal Canadiens when the general manager who had put him in place, Marc Bergevin, was fired.
This is what the former head coach said on Wednesday, during the annual golf tournament of the Dominique-Ducharme Foundation, at the Joliette golf club, when he spoke for the first time with the Montreal media since his dismissal.
However, Ducharme is not angry with the new management, which fired him last February.
“I would have liked to have that meeting with Kent (Hughes), to tell him how I saw things, how I saw the future. But that’s okay: it’s their decision and I think it was already taken when they made the change, when Marc left. We see it elsewhere too: when there is a change of direction, the new people who arrive want to turn the page on the old direction and put their mark, bring their people.
“What I understood was that the change was to be made one way or another,” he later added. It was a matter of time, might as well do it now. »
He also assures that he does not blame the players, including Jeff Petry, who expressed in veiled words that the change of coach was timely, last February.
“I had a good relationship with the players. I spoke with several of them afterwards. For Jeff, it was a difficult situation, with the start of the season, his family situation. It was not easy for him. There may be a way of doing it, which happens maybe two or three times a game, in which he perhaps felt less comfortable, but yet we had used it against Toronto and it had us neutralized their offense and we kept it in the playoffs thereafter. I always tried to communicate as well as possible with everyone and there was never anything personal with him. »
Since his dismissal, Ducharme has had some discussions with other organizations, but he wants to take his time in order to accept the offer that suits him best. After all, he still has two years to go on the contract he signed with CH.
“It’s certain that the sting is still there: I’ve done that all my life and I want to return as head coach in the National League, that’s for sure. Last year, we came here three wins away from winning the Stanley Cup. My goal is to get those three missing wins. I have come a long way. That’s a test. I have met plenty of them in my career, and it will continue to make me grow as a coach, ”he added.
He does not close the door to any possible offer at the professional level, but we feel he is reluctant to return to junior hockey.
“There are talks. I am in a situation where I have two years left on my contract. I still want to, I’ve always done that, but I want to do it in good conditions. I allow myself to wait for the right opportunity, the right place to come back to. […] I am open to everything, but it is certain that on the junior side, I did what I had to do. Whether it’s the NHL or professional hockey, all doors are open,” he said.
Ducharme only led the Habs for 83 games, spread over two seasons. Under him, the team won 23 games, lost 46 others and suffered a tiebreaker loss 14 times. She reached the Stanley Cup final in the summer of 2021, losing in five games to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“I am proud to have coached the Canadiens. In the past 40 years, four teams have reached the final. I am proud to have been the coach of one of these teams, he noted. I was invested from start to finish. From my arrival as assistant in 2018 until the last day I left, I put my heart into it. […] Regardless of the ups and downs, it was an honor,” he said.
The Quebecer does not believe that his short stay in Montreal could prevent him from receiving offers in the future.
“People are able to see the situation. We look at the four teams in the semifinals last year, only Tampa made the playoffs this year. The other three teams, we had difficulties at the start of the season. Of course, with the short summer we had, it worked against us, even more than the Islanders and Vegas, because we finished two weeks later. People are aware of the good things we’ve done and the difficulties we’ve had. I also have a career before (the Canadian). They are able to put it all together and make their own assessment,” he concluded.
Before joining Claude Julien’s group of assistants in the summer of 2018, Ducharme had a brilliant career at the junior level. He led the Halifax Mooseheads to the Memorial Cup in 2013, and won gold as Canada’s junior team captain at the 2018 Worlds, a year after losing in the tournament.