Gillett and Gainey on the Right Path
March 7, 2009, by Homme De Sept-Iles
It’s an 82-game season and the process in recovering from large deficits in a hockey club’s culture is not a one-month or one-year process.
I say this because many of the recent frustrated comments from both fans and media on television, radio and the internet seem to be based on an impatience that is increasing. The team loses and all details of progress made are lost. The team wins and all is forgiven. There is more to pro sport than the final score.
Montreal Canadiens, on a game-to-game basis are like any other team; they have losing streaks, bad periods, bad shifts. Sometimes a series of events can conspire to derail entire seasons. Remember that flu virus? Or how about the man-games lost to injury issue?
When we focus on outcomes rather than process, and when that outcome-based focus becomes one where short-term results become mandatory, fans and media (and by extension, in some cases, players, coaches and management) become easily and quickly frustrated.
This is a team that is still recovering from wounds inflicted over several years. The trades or losses of key players over several seasons during the nineties and into the early two-thousands were, in many cases, permanent ones. What I mean is, in many cases the team did not get value back for what they lost.
One example is the unfortunate trading of then-captain Guy Carbonneau. In 1994, it is said that Carbonneau’s famous middle finger led him to be traded from the team. Carbonneau was photographed flipping the bird to the local media on a summer-time golf course. The axiom, “Nobody is bigger than the Montreal Canadiens” and the accompanying high expectations around public behaviour were thought to be the reason for Carbonneau’s departure to St. Louis Blues. He later joined Dallas Stars.
Whether or not the reason for the trade is true, the reality is, the player Montreal got in return, journeyman centre Jim Montgomery played only 58 more NHL games with long breaks in between and only five of those in a Montreal uniform. Carbonneau went on to play 406 games, giving great value to his both his new teams and eventually helping Dallas to a Stanley Cup win in 1999. In addition, he was one of the factors in helping to reverse the Star culture. They remain a proud and competitive franchise and their culture is known by hockey people to be a positive one.
That is just one example of many. Long-time Montreal fans can remember those if you ask them. There were many personnel decisions in that dark period that did not augur well for the long-term health of the team. And, though the details remain murky, there were internal issues that hampered the team as well.
The impact of those issues was deep and fractious.
Since returning to the Canadiens in the summer of 2003, current general manager Bob Gainey, with the approval and support of owner George Gillet, has had to deal with engineering significant and lasting culture change.
When we look at the Montreal Canadiens on a macro level, and by that I am suggesting, say, five-year segments, it becomes easier to see the overall progress the team has made. On the surface, the team has made the playoffs far more often than in the years immediately preceding Gainey. Internally, there is even more to be pleased about for Montreal supporters.
If there is a checklist for cultural and organizational change, it is a long one and much of that change is behind the scenes and not immediately evident on game night nor necessarily in the won-lost column. In Montreal, some of these factors can include the team’s drafting and scouting systems, the quality of the training staff and improvement of facilities. Other even less tangible qualities that could change in such a shift include shifting club morale, removal of a rule-by-fear modality, consistency and follow-through and an emphasis on integrity and quality.
This is not to say that any or all of these items were lacking. But Bob Gainey the manager has certainly placed an emphasis on these and other factors that make him one of the more progressive and effective general managers in the game today.
Winning the Stanley Cup once can be done without making changes in all of the areas mentioned. Just some of them.
But to win several Stanley Cups, and to be consistent winners season to season (as Detroit and Dallas tend to be) a team must be strong in all of these areas and a few more.
There is much to be proud of with the resurgence of the Montreal Canadiens in recent years. For all involved, to their respective degrees, and for all who care, fans, media, hockey personnel and families.
Montreal is slowly but surely becoming a place that other players want to consider coming to. They have excellent facilities, a reputable training staff, a solid scouting system and an excellent farm program with a lot of young talent coming up.
They have a diverse coaching staff with perspectives from different eras and with specialties that help the club develop those diligent qualities a winnning team must have.
George Gillett has been a marvellous owner. He has respected the tradition in Montreal even though he did not grow up here. He hired a competent, sought-after man (while President of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ken Dryden tried to hire Bob Gainey as GM in 2002) and allowed that man the latitude needed to run the team.
Many hockey people, media members and fans outside of Montreal will cite Bob Gainey’s name when discussing examples of what good management in the NHL should look like.
Many teams would love to have a Bob Gainey and George Gillett in town running things.
If we step back as Montreal partisans and see the bigger picture, we can begin to see just how profound the move towards a positive outcome is in Montreal.
Here is a challenge for those who are disgruntled; over the next few games, try and think of three non-ice examples of the team’s improvement and try and measure how those improvements have moved the team in the right direction.
Go Habs Go. In Bob we Trust.
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