The Toronto Maple Leafs are the best team in the NHL.
The Montreal Canadiens fired their coach this morning, which is weird because the Toronto Media told me that they had the best off-season and were legit contenders, while supposedly the Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t and aren’t.
The Canadiens got off to a good start, but I guess some people really did think that Tyler Toffoli was going to score 87 goals!
I actually kind of feel bad for Claude Julien (he healthy scratched Tomas Tatar, so I don’t feel that bad for him, that’s just begging for it) still, it’s not like he’s the one who decided $15 million of the team’s available cap space should go to goalies. The worst thing here is that for some reason the Marc Bergevin era gets to continue indefinitely.
As a Leafs fan exposed to Brian Burke, David Nonis, John Ferguson jr. Mark Hunter and Lou Lamoriello, just know I feel your pain.
The Habs Should Know Better
If the Habs were smart, they’d have switched GMs along with coaches. Jack Han is a great twitter follow, but a smart team would make him their GM. Alas, we know that team isn’t the Canadiens.
Too bad because the league’s most progressive, collaborative, data-driven front office has their team in first place. Still, you’ve got to like the fact that they hired Ray Liotta their team.
The Canadiens have appointed Dominique Ducharme interim head coach and have added Alex Burrows to the coaching staff. Claude Julien and Kirk Muller have been relieved of their coaching duties. https://t.co/rhkfrD9m8f
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) February 24, 2021
The Habs started strong, but like I said at the time, their record was heavily influenced by being able to pound on a terrible Vancouver team. They were winless in three and last night they lost to the hapless Senators which was the end of the line of Julien.
Don’t worry about him though, the Canadiens will give him another shot once they rotate back through the Gainey-Carbonneau-Therien cycle.
While it’s fun to mock the Habs, the fact is their team isn’t nearly as bad as this little streak indicates. They have enough games in hand on the Oilers to move into second place, and the Jets are incredibly overrated. The Canadiens shouldn’t have too much trouble finishing second in the Canadian Division.
And while I don’t know anything about their new interim coach, the fact is that all you have to do to be better than Claude Julien is not healthy scratch Tomas Tatar (or Brett Kulak for that matter).
Anyways, probably a great day for the Habs, they can still salvage their season and lose in round two to the Toronto Maple Leafs as has been preordained. Not a good day for the Leafs, as their biggest rival in their division just got better.