Geoff Molson spoke for roughly an hour Monday morning, a day after the most tumultuous day in his 12 years as majority owner and president of the Canadiens.
Molson is not someone who relishes these situations, opening himself up to public questioning, because he does so only in times of crisis and, as he said himself, he will do so only when he has a decision to announce. And the way he fills his role as president, he only makes decisions when things are going horribly wrong.
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We had not heard from Molson during this season that has gone horribly wrong because he had no decision to announce. Until he did. And that decision was indicative of everything the Canadiens are facing now that this season has gone horribly wrong.
That decision was complicated.
Molson was in a position where he had to explain why he hired a unilingual American from Massachusetts to head up his hockey operations department, and because of the complications, Molson had to explain that Jeff Gorton is only one part of the equation, that the as-yet-unnamed general manager who will be bilingual will be another important part of that equation, an equally important part, because what else can he say? The alternative would be to admit that he hired someone who can’t speak French to head up hockey operations for the Montreal Canadiens, and that is something that he simply can’t and won’t admit is the case. Even if it is.
“I know this is a unique structure,” Molson said, “but this is a unique market.”
Yes, it’s a market where Molson couldn’t simply find the best available candidate, which Gorton unquestionably was if you put a heavy emphasis on the available part. It’s a market where Molson needs to respect and account for the reality of his situation, a reality he readily accepts and embraces, but a reality that limited what Molson could do when it became evident to him that firing Marc Bergevin as general manager had become unavoidable, a realization he says only became obvious to him a few days earlier.
Gorton is not bilingual, but the general manager will be. If you’re confused about the power structure going forward — and Molson tip-toed around repeated questioning on this subject — you are not alone. People within the Canadiens front office, those who remain in any case, are equally confused. But it really shouldn’t be all that confusing.
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The complications of the unique market the Canadiens are in made this necessary. It made it so Molson could not come out and admit that the person in charge of making hockey operations decisions for the Canadiens can’t speak French. It made it so he had to say that Gorton and the future GM will work in tandem, that they will both report to him, that the general manager is ultimately the one who will be accountable for the hockey decisions that will be made. Molson can say all that, but that doesn’t mean that is the reality of this new structure.
If there is a decision that needs a final say, if there is disagreement on something, it is rather obvious that it is Gorton who will have the final say. He wouldn’t have agreed to a long-term contract otherwise, not when he would have had multiple opportunities to be hired as a general manager had he waited it out until the end of the season with jobs open in Chicago and Anaheim and perhaps elsewhere.
The ambiguity is simply a reflection of the complications of the market.
“In our own market, we have to respect the language, both English and French,” Molson said. “But we have fans all over the world, so it’s unique, but it makes it complicated. But complications can be good sometimes, and I’m pretty excited about this one.”
One of the priorities Molson identified as part of the “fresh start” he hopes this will create is to increase the level of diversity within the hockey operations department, one that has been composed exclusively of middle-aged white men forever. Molson sees this as an opportunity to change that, something he described as a priority and something he takes seriously. So, even though he deferred a question about what the criteria will be for the next general manager to Gorton — yet another sign of what the actual power structure will be in Montreal — the hope would be that Molson’s desire to add diversity to the team’s hockey operations would also apply to the general manager position, a position he hopes to fill with someone who will complement Gorton’s skill set.
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In other words, Molson has already hired a very typical hockey man. We will see if the general manager is equally typical.
“I think on the hockey side there is quite a big opportunity to introduce different perspectives into the organization, and that will just make us stronger,” Molson said when asked to specify what adding diversity means. “It will make us make better decisions. And I truly believe that. It’s not easy to do, but it certainly is a priority. And with this new management team coming into place, I think we will be in a much better position to make that happen.”
But this is not the only complication Molson has to deal with. Or rather, that Gorton has to deal with, because Molson made it clear with the number of questions he deferred to Gorton that many of these issues will now be his problem.
The Canadiens’ current record of 6-16-2 after they lost 2-1 to a far more dysfunctional Vancouver Canucks team at home Monday night made Gorton’s challenge very clear. He is inheriting a team with several veterans on long-term contracts, which is hardly ideal if Gorton were to decide that the Canadiens are in need of a rebuild similar to the one he managed with the New York Rangers.
But that, too, is complicated. Because a rebuild naturally entails losing for a while, and the team Gorton will be managing has several players who did not sign up for losing. One of them is Brendan Gallagher, who gave a heartfelt tribute to Bergevin following this loss to the Canucks, thanking him for giving him a chance to play in the NHL, for being an attentive ear whenever he needed to talk to someone, for taking a personal approach to what had become somewhat contentious contract negotiations last year.
But the reason Gallagher signed that contract that ties him to the Canadiens for the next six years was he believed this team was in a position to win. And now, with a new head of hockey operations arriving, it is unknown how Gorton will view things, whether he will believe that some sort of teardown is necessary to create the winning environment Gallagher seeks.
“This is my 10th season now, and I’ve always come in with the expectation to win,” Gallagher said. “I feel like my teammates had the same goal, I felt like management had the same goal, and sometimes organizations go through those things. I guess those are conversations that would probably need to be had down the road, but for me, I play this game to win. That’s the only way I can enjoy it. You don’t always need to win every game, but you need to feel like we’re trying to win, you need to feel like it’s important.
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“If that’s a decision they want to make, those are conversations you probably need to have going forward, but for now, that’s not something I’ve put a lot of thought in. I still feel like this is an organization that I love dearly, and that’s probably not being strong enough with it. I love this city, I love everything about it. I haven’t thought about it until you asked the question, but it would definitely be a tough decision, and like I said, conversations that you’d have to have, but I love being here and that’s first and foremost.”
Gallagher is hardly the only person in this position. Jeff Petry signed a contract extension with the same expectations, that he would have a chance to win in Montreal. The same goes for Josh Anderson, Tyler Toffoli, Joel Edmundson, Mike Hoffman and others. A rebuild was not necessarily what this group had in mind. But a rebuild might be what Gorton sees as necessary. And a rebuild with this group would be complicated.
But there is one part of what Molson talked about Monday morning that should not be complicated. Yet, for some reason, it appears to be.
Molson, very early in his prepared statement Monday, talked about the importance for the Canadiens to properly develop the large group of draft picks who have entered the organization in the past three years.
One of those players is Cole Caufield, and one thing Caufield does best is perform on the power play. The Canadiens didn’t get a power play until early in the third period against the Canucks on Monday, but when they did, Caufield watched the beginning of that power play from the bench. He also watched a decent portion of the second period from the bench, presumably because of a bad turnover, though he was hardly the only one to do that. The winning goal came off a turnover in the defensive zone from Josh Anderson, and he didn’t spend extensive time on the bench watching as a result.
This is something else that is complicated even though it shouldn’t be because Dominique Ducharme has to convince his players he is coaching to win, while there is an organizational need for him to coach to develop. It would be very difficult — or complicated — for him to do both at once. He was asked about this complicated paradox before the game, and Ducharme trotted out the same answer he’s given for weeks now, that if a young player is simply trying to survive in the NHL then it does him no good, but if he is contributing then it helps his development.
Caufield’s best chance to contribute, and therefore develop, is on the power play. And yet he played only 50 seconds out of four minutes of power-play time the Canadiens had against the Canucks.
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“Right now, I think he’s got some ups and downs, but some good moments with the downs,” Ducharme said of Caufield. “That’s something that we’ll need to evaluate on a longer period. But the other thing right now is we have injuries up front, and we need guys who can be stepping in and playing right now. So I think for all our young guys, up front and defence and even in net, where they can take that and show who’s ready to stay and who might be needing more time.”
What makes this complicated for Ducharme is what Gallagher said about the organization wanting to win, that it is important. For Gallagher, development can’t come before winning. And that applies to many veterans on long-term contracts on the team. But for the organization, having Caufield on the power play is essential. Having Nick Suzuki not playing the bumper spot as he was Monday night is also essential. Having these players succeed is vitally important to the future success of the franchise.
The difference in priorities for different players in different stages of their careers is yet another complication for the Canadiens, something Gorton will now need to navigate along with all the other complications of working in this unique market.
Molson is hoping for a fresh start, but it won’t be that simple. It will, in fact, be quite complicated.
(Photo of Geoff Molson: David Kirouac / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
