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Canadiens fire Gauthier, begin search for new GM

Sean Gordon, Globe and Mail, Mar. 29, 2012

It had to end this way, really, and now it has.

Pierre Gauthier is now the ex-general manager of hockey's most decorated franchise, shown the door with less than two weeks to go in an abysmal season that has the Montreal Canadiens dead last in the NHL's Eastern Conference.

Gauthier, who previously ran the Ottawa Senators and Anaheim Ducks, leaves a club in disarray, but nevertheless one with promise.

The Montreal Canadiens have fired general manager Pierre Gauthier. Gauthier is shown speaking at a news conference in Montreal, Monday, Feb. 8, 2010, where he was announced as the new general manager of the Canadiens.
Video
Canadiens fire GM Pierre Gauthier

The Habs will have a chance to draft an impact player in June, and clearly team president and principal owner Geoff Molson decided it is time to retool the hockey department well ahead of that pivotal decision. Molson also announced that former GM Bob Gainey, who has been advising Gauthier since stepping down in 2010, has left the team by mutual consent.

It was clear last December when Gauthier fired head coach Jacques Martin – his long-time friend – that the GM was also rolling the dice on his own fate.

The Habs were two points out of eighth place then, and promptly went into a tailspin under interim boss Randy Cunneyworth.

That's to say nothing of the firestorm provoked by the decision to appoint a unilingual Anglophone.

More damaging than all of that, perhaps, was Gauthier's decision to part company with Martin – on the day of a game – came shortly after Molson gave his coach and GM a public vote of confidence and said there was no intention of making a coaching change.

If you're going to make a liar out of your boss, it had better be worth it, and in the end it was a catastrophic miscalculation.

One of many, in fact: signing Andrei Markov to a three-year extension despite uncertainty over his balky knees, trusting that Scott Gomez could rebound from a dismal year, firing assistant coach Perry Pearn two hours before a game, taking on Tomas Kaberle's bloated contract to fix the power play, and imagining that Rene Bourque was a more effective player than Michael Cammalleri.

Gauthier inherited a team that had just gone to the conference finals, and on his watch it has regressed badly.

That's not all his fault – you can't legislate against injuries – but what is his fault is that he made it such there is no one else left to blame.

Molson has appointed former Habs GM Serge Savard to help lead the search for Gauthier's successor, and suggested that while hiring a French-speaking executive is his preference, his priority is finding the best person for the job.

"We need to remember that our fans want us to win, period . . . we will do anything that is required to win," he said. "Our organizational culture is to support and adopt this passion for victory. Nothing else matters."

Dean
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