Montreal Canadiens fire head coach Dominique Ducharme
The Montreal Canadiens have fired head coach Dominique Ducharme, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reported Wednesday.
Hearing the #Habs have fired coach Dominique Ducharme. @DailyFaceoff
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) February 9, 2022After leading the Habs to the Stanley Cup Finals last year, Montreal awarded Ducharme with a three-year contract.
But this year, Montreal has fallen off a cliff as one of the worst teams in the entire NHL. They hold the league’s worst record at 8-30-7 while scoring the second-fewest goals and allowing the most in the entire league.
His tenure as head coach is nothing short of a complete oddity in the NHL. He posted a 23-46-14 record in 83 regular-season games, but also helped carry the Habs to a Stanley Cup finals appearance.
In the playoffs, however, he posted a 13-9 record in 22 games in what was Montreal’s first Cup finals appearance since 1993.
Ducharme’s firing comes just 22 days after Montreal named Kent Hughes the 18th general manager in franchise history. Hughes clearly hasn’t been happy with what he has seen from the Canadiens, and early last week said he would be open to trading defenceman Jeff Petry, who is one of many players that has struggled.
In a statement, Hughes said the move was “in the best interest of the club.”
“We would like to sincerely thank Dominique for his work and contributions to the Montreal Canadiens organization,” he said. “At this point in the season, we felt it was in the best interest of the club to make a change.”
The club is expected to name its next head coach later Wednesday. The status of assistant coaches Alex Burrows, Éric Gravel, Mario Leblanc, Trevor Letowski, Éric Raymond and Luke Richardson remains unchanged, the club said.
As noted by CapFriendly, Ducharme’s deal paid him roughly $1.7-million, and the club was also still paying Julien $5-million this season.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.