If desperate times call for desperate measures, then we can only assume that the sense of desperation in the Canadiens front office has yet to reach a fever pitch.
On a day when the knives were out for Jacques Martin, the Canadiens responded to the universal clamor for drastic change by making one of their least monumental trades since Reggie Houle rolled the dice and dealt Igor Ulanov and Alain Nasreddine to the Oilers for Christian Laflamme and Matthieu Descouteaux.
In Petteri Nokelainen and Garrett Stafford, the Habs get a former first round bust with exactly one NHL goal in the last three seasons combined, and a 31 year old defenceman with seven career NHL games to his credit. As band-aid solutions go, that ranks right up there with bailing the Titanic with a fork or using cedar tiles as thermal protection for the space shuttle.
The easy call would be to get rid of coach Jacques Martin, and that's the direction most fingers are pointing. Saturday's game provided ample fodder.
Mathieu Darche on the power play while Erik Cole serves bench minors? Two too-many-men penalties in one night and three in seven games this season? Line juggling that smacks of perplexity more than it demonstrates rhyme or reason? Do I really need to go on?
It's not Martin or even Pierre Gauthier who faces the toughest choices. Whether he's comfortable with it or not, the ultimate responsibility lies with Canadiens President and CEO Geoff Molson. The buck stops with him, and whether and how he responds to this early season crisis will tell the team's fans a lot about the organization's commitment to winning.
