Stu Cowan: Canadiens fans need a lot of patience during recovery

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Jeff Gorton didn't want to say the word “playoff” at the Canadians' annual golf tournament last September in Laval-sur-le-Lac.

Entering his second full season of rebuilding, the team's executive vice president of hockey didn't want to put the added pressure of making the playoffs on his young team.

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“Listen, I know we all wish we'd said the P word,” Gorton said at the time. “For us, internally, I've said since I've been here: we try to improve every day and I know it's a cliché and I'm sorry for that. But this is how we move forward. This is what we want. We have a lot of young players with room to grow and we're going to give them that room.”

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With 30 games left in the season before they face the Anaheim Ducks at the Bell Center on Tuesday night, the Canadiens' playoff hopes have faded. With a 21-23-8 record, the Sports Club Stats website had a 0.1% chance of making the playoffs.

An important “P word” when it comes to total remodeling is patience. But head coach Martin St. Louis doesn't like to use that word.

“I don't know if sick is the right word,” he said Tuesday after the morning skate at the Bell Center. “I always say you have to be aggressive if you know it's going to take time and I feel that way. I think as a band we know we're building something here and there's going to be some ups and downs, there's going to be some growing pains so to speak. But for me, it shows the players that you're in charge of the process and that you're consistent with the message and what you're going for and that you're developing as a team in every department.”

It took a long time for the Canadiens to be as bad as they were before Gorton, general manager Kent Hughes and St. Louis were hired to clean up the job — and a lot of mistakes from previous management. So it will take time to get this team back on a consistent winning streak. The question is, how long are fans willing to put up with this?

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“I don't know how patient our fans are going to be, but I'm amazed at how much they support a team that's ranked 28th,” team owner/president Jeff Molson said in a personal interview last March. . “I've been doing this for 14 years and I don't know the time in my life when the Montreal Canadiens said we were rebuilding, and I did. The fans, it seems like they've been waiting for this for a long time and they're excited that we're doing it. How long will they wait until we get there? I don't know the answer to this question. You look at Toronto, Edmonton, Buffalo, New Jersey, they've all been through the last eight years and it's hard to do that.”

Of course he is.

Entering Tuesday's game, the Canadiens were 26th in the NHL standings. Kirby Dutch's knee injury in the second game and Alex Newhook missing 27 games before returning on the weekend slowed his recovery this season.

To me, a five-year plan seems reasonable when it comes to restructuring, and then you can determine if management is on the right track. Next season will be Year 3 and the Canadiens have 23 picks in the next two drafts, including two first rounds each year. They are also loaded with players 24 years of age or younger, including captain Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Newhook, Juraj Slafkowski, Joshua Roy, Dach, Jordan Harris, Jayden Struble, Kaiden Goulet, Aber Hekage and Kaiden Prayau.

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“Management has a plan for the season, an idea of ​​what the next 10 years will look like,” Suzuki said. “It's up to us to stick to the present, to take it day by day. We still wanted to make the playoffs (in the golf tournament), we still wanted to make the playoffs. Everyone likes to be in that atmosphere and those games. You go into every season with that goal. Obviously, we lost big chunks. We are now back in the standings. Technically we're not out of it and I think that's kind of the mentality in our room.”

The players want to make the playoffs every season, but management needs to look at the bigger picture — especially during a rebuild.

“I'd be lying if I said we weren't looking at the standings,” defenseman Jonathan Kovacevic said after the morning skate. “You always look at the standings because we have the goal of making the playoffs. That is our goal and we are still working towards that goal. We need to heat up here and get some road going. Start enjoying our game. It starts with one game and that's what we're going to focus on tonight.”

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That rebuild will take time, but St. Louis doesn't want to put a timeline on it.

“To me, it's got the Waze mentality,” he said. “We'll get there, sometimes things slow us down, sometimes things speed us up. I think it happens organically and you have to put a schedule on it, which I don't think is fair. It's about getting there.”

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