Before flying to join the team in Las Vegas, Kent Hughes said he wanted to take the time to assess the numbers he had on hand before taking action. The three games he attended surely made him realize that he had a lot on his plate.
• Read also: Correction in order
• Read also: “This one goes in the trash”–Dominique Ducharme
The end of this journey of seven games coincided with the end of the first half of the Canadian season. A long agony of 41 games in which he went 8-26-7, the league’s worst, and had 15 games in which he allowed at least five goals, a team record for a first half of the campaign.
Of course, the Habs went through a real ordeal with the numerous injuries and the outbreak of COVID-19 which undermined its ranks, until it had to call on 38 players.
Whose fault is it ?
Nevertheless, there is reason to wonder what is the responsibility of Dominique Ducharme in all this.
He may have two and a half years left on the contract that Marc Bergevin granted him last summer, after the team’s presence in the Stanley Cup final, the fact remains that his new boss will use the next few weeks to evaluate his work.
In his first official press briefing, Hughes was somewhat evasive about the head coach’s future.
“I want to talk to him first. I have only just arrived in office. I have ideas about the qualities that a modern coach should have. I’ll talk to Dominique, learn more about him. From there, we’ll see. »
Similar philosophies
We do not know what the new general manager meant by “modern coach” (see other text opposite). Still, wins usually count for a lot.
At least, from the point of view of philosophy, the vision of the two men seems to agree. Hughes mentioned that he wants his team to be fast. Not just in terms of skating, but also in terms of pace, reaction and decision making.
During the fall, even before Bergevin was sacked, Ducharme had essentially listed the same qualifiers to describe the team he would like to put on the ice.
Same thing on the defensive side, while the two men want to bet on “a team of puck possession”.
However, granting more than 40 shots three times out of four shows that the CH has several shortcomings at this level.
Disorganization
We saw it during the last trip. The Habs are completely disorganized in their territory. The positioning errors are glaring, as is the confusion surrounding who is responsible in the covers. Not to mention that the success rate in battles for puck recoveries is starving. Which is more of a lack of effort.
Could the system deployed by Ducharme be deficient? It would be surprising given the presence of the Canadian in the final.
However, during this first half of the season, some of his players spoke of their difficulties in applying the system, which prompted Jeff Petry to declare: “it seems that there is no structure”.
Inadequate adaptation
These assertions lead one to believe that Ducharme simply did not know how to adapt his system to the numbers he had at hand.
If so, the 48-year-old Joliettain could be in trouble, as the second half of the calendar will not be much better than the first.