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If I were Montreal Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey I’d be starting to feel nervous about my job security.
After staging a major off-season overhaul by adding Mike Cammalleri, Scott Gomez, Brian Gionta, Travis Moen, Hal Gill, Jaroslav Spacek and Paul Mara the Canadiens after 20 games had a 9-11 record.
Sure, most of the additions, especially Cammalleri, Gomez, Gionta, Moen and Spacek, have been significant contributors, and the club has been hit by injuries, but apart from a few exceptions (Tomas Plekanec, Josh Gorges, Glen Metropolit) the rest of the roster has not played well.
The Habs as of Tuesday had 62 more games remaining in their schedule, plenty of time to reverse their fortunes, but if they don’t get their act together this team will at worst miss the playoffs or at best become first round road-kill, just as they were last spring against the Boston Bruins.
That will mean Gainey hits the unemployment line, having saddled the Canadiens with a payroll for next season of just over $46 million committed to 15 players, with a salary cap expected to flat-line or drop slightly, and with Plekanec, Metropolit, Carey Price, Jaroslav Halak and Maxime Lapierre to be re-signed plus leaving no room to bring in experienced depth.
Worse, if the Canadiens fail to show any significant improvement this season, it could cast significant doubt upon their hopes of re-signing all-star defenseman Andrei Markov over the course of next summer.
Markov will be eligible for UFA status on July 1st, 2011. The Canadiens can open talks with him next summer toward an extension but why would he want to stick with a team mired in mediocrity facing another long rebuilding effort?
I’m guessing he decides to move on under that scenario, meaning by the 2011 trade deadline Markov could be playing somewhere else.
This time a year ago, Canadiens fans – of which I am one – were touting the club as a powerhouse on the rise. Years of rebuilding via the draft and development of young talent appeared to be finally paying off.
The Habs had in 2007-08 finished atop the Eastern Conference standings for the first time in twenty years, buoyed in large part by players drafted and developed by the Canadiens.
Plekanec, Markov, Mark Streit, Andrei Kostitsyn and Chris Higgins were among their leading scorers. Mike Komisarek emerged as one of the league’s top shutdown defensemen. Price became the club’s starting goalie by mid-season with Halak as his reliable backup. Latendresse and Sergei Kostitsyn appeared to be youngsters on the rise.
The architect had been primarily Gainey, who built patiently, hired old friend Guy Carbonneau as head coach and was earning accolades from the usually cynical Montreal media for building the Habs back into what many observers considered a future Cup contender.
At this time a year ago, the Canadiens were fourth overall in the East, only a handful of points behind the Conference-leading Bruins, as Habs fans reveled in the club’s 100th anniversary celebrations.
Sure, there were a few trouble spots last fall. The Kostitsyns and Plekanec weren’t scoring as much, Streit walked to the NY Islanders via free agency and the Habs PP struggled without his big point shot, Higgins and Komisarek were hobbled by injuries, Price at times didn’t look as sharp between the pipes and Latendresse had yet to emerge as a power forward. Veterans like Alex Kovalev and Saku Koivu also weren’t playing well.
Still, this was a team that remained in the top four in the East from October 2008 up to the all-star break in mid-January 2009, winning 11 of fourteen games heading into the All-Star weekend.
Canadiens fans know what happened next. The team quickly fell apart amidst allegations too many of their young players were enjoying the Montreal nightlife too much and too many impending free agents uncertain about their future with the club.
The Habs fell out of the top of the Eastern standings and barely scraped into the 2009 playoffs where the Conference-leading Bruins humiliated them in a sweep.
That prompted Gainey, who fired Carbonneau as head coach late in the season, to make those aforementioned sweeping changes leading to the current situation the Habs find themselves in.
The Montreal media are sharpening their knives with the Gazette’s Jack Todd and Rejean Tremblay of La Presse wasting little time in carving up Gainey.
Sure, most of the players Gainey brought in this summer are out-performing those, like Komisarek, Kovalev, Koivu and Higgins, who were either dealt or allowed to walk via free agency, but that’s cold comfort as the rest of the Canadiens struggle.
New head coach Jacques Martin is doing the best he can with what he’s got, but it appears at this point what he’s got isn’t very much, a team which beyond a handful of key players appear loaded with underachievers.
Yes, it’s a long season and lots of hockey remains to be played, but unless some of the young under-achievers pick up their play in the coming weeks, lack of depth is going to kill the Canadiens playoff hopes.
That means Gainey will be unemployed by next spring, if not sooner, while the Canadiens face starting the next decade only marginally better than they were when they entered this decade.
It probably won’t be Gainey who could lose his job. The scouting department could also face an overhaul after their once-highly touted prospects of this decade failed to materialize into the future stars expected to help carry the Canadiens to a 25th Stanley Cup championship.
That also means Canadiens fans could face another rebuilding process, one which could be hampered by the big salaries of the players brought in this summer.
Canadiens fans should prepare for more mediocrity from a once-great franchise which has been amongst the league’s also-rans for far too long.
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