The collapse of Montreal in the NHL is looking for a peer in the modern NHL. The coach and club management have gone on to exchange.
Montreal’s spring and summer of 2021 was a fairy tale. Reaching the finals of the Stanley Cup surprised everyone following the NHL. First, the team rose from a 1-3 loss in the first round to a 4-3 win against tough Toronto. After that, Winnipeg and the top team in the West, Vegas, were left behind.
Bensa ran out only in the finals against the reigning champion Tampa.
Although few believed Les Habitants would repeat the trick in the beginning of the season, a collapse like the one seen was hard to predict. Montreal not only fell off the top, but collapsed into the worst throwing bag of the entire series, along with the NHL stigma of Arizona.
The December and January balances show the essential Montreal season. The Habs won one match in December and one in January. There were 33 days between the two victories.
Of course, the owner had already reacted to the difficult autumn. For nine years, the boss who led the sports side will follow Marc Bergevinille the final account was issued as early as the end of November. Although the game was messed up for a really long time and the team felt lifeless, head coach Dominique Ducharmen with the club leadership did not crash.
The pilot was finally fired on February 9th.
His replacement was Montreal even a little surprisingly at the top level completely inexperienced former NHL player Martin St. Louis. St. Louis coached 13-year-old boys before the NHL deal.
In all of the above, there has been a lot of filtering for players. Especially when the team ran a huge leadership gap in the summer. Operating as a follower Carey Price has been on the sidelines for a long time, as has been the team captain as well as the main leading player, the defender Shea Weber.
The team’s Finnish pier Joel Armia does not beautify the situation.
– What happened in the autumn is a good question, Armia sighs to Sport.
– Surely the pain simply grew too great when such a long pass went badly. Nothing seemed to work out and just didn’t get out of that spiral. No one had self-confidence and the snowball was spinning in the wrong direction. I can’t go into details any more, Armia continues.
Coaching lost its grip
Clearly, all in all, Montreal had no head or tail at either end of the field during the fall season. Montreal defended weakly and did not seem to have any idea and therefore recurrence in the attack. Even when the special situation gambling was still classless, the ship sank.
The coach lost his grip.
– The players, the coaches and everyone here tried their best to get things done. I can’t say it anymore, Armia dodges.
The Army, not from Pori, still escapes the truth.
– After all, this has been a really challenging season, and it has by no means been nice to lose it all the time. There was a lack of relaxation and joy in playing. When it came to solving games or making winning performances, the racket was squeezed too much and stuff like that. It has been really difficult.
Now the question is in which direction the road to Montreal will take you through the NHL as a player but as a coach under completely inexperienced St. Louis. The team started with a new pilot with three losses, but has since won four games in the tube. For now, however, the boom seems more of an initial fever after a difficult fall.
Montreal still plays hockey, which is losing in many places, and special situation gambling still coughs. Habs hasn’t scored any superiority goals with St. Louis yet.
– Now our gaming has been really much better. The team is regaining their self-confidence and, for example, one goal will no longer be relentless. Sometimes it requires big changes to get out of the negative spiral. Now I’m just wondering if I want to forget about the fall difficulties and move on. The old ones are useless.
According to the Army, St. Louis has released the atmosphere by releasing the team to play. The Canadian, who once won the Stanley Cup and the NHL points exchange in his career as a player, is playing the puck and the backbone, and this is now being brought to Montreal as well.
– We now play simpler and focus more on playing the game than on tactical stuff. It has brought positivity to the atmosphere and gaming. Now everything is based more specifically on gaming and players ’game reading skills. That’s where we got it done.
Rhythm in search
If it has been difficult for Montreal as a team, the same can be said for Armia from his personal season. Last summer, an ace farmer who signed a four-year, $ 13.6 million extension contract has suffered injuries and been sidelined twice because of a corona infection.
The Army, which was highly anticipated in Montreal, has scored just two goals and seven points in 37 games.
– This has been quite a disappointment. The season has been really broken and getting to the rhythm has been really hard.
Nothing has seemed to work, although I have worked every day to reverse the course. On the other hand, now that the team is playing better, the game has started to open, Armia concludes.