Saturday 29 October 2011

Montreal Canadiens classless?

Lot of talk about Elliott Friedman calling the Montreal organization classless for firing Perry Pearn. I just watched the segment and linked it below. What Mr. Friedman does is he repeats what coaches in the league have told him, so it’s not an editorial comment by him but rather his reporting of unnamed sources. Eric Francis chimes in later and he supports Mr. Friedman’s reporting, but takes it up a notch by saying “…it’s not just coaches, everyone in the game thinks it’s a low-class move…”
I guess there are a lot of hockey people out there who have a better finger on the pulse, they may know of some backroom events that we don’t and they want to stick up for their colleague who was fired in an unconventional manner. It’s been hard to get any insight into this, it seems that all reporters will do is criticize Mr. Gauthier for being vague, but won’t themselves tell us what happened, probably to protect their sources and their access to the Montreal organization. So Mr. Francis, Mr. Friedman, tell us what you know instead of broad, unsubstantiated hints and innuendo. The only one who has pulled back the curtains to any degree so far is François Gagnon.
As far as the decision itself to let Mr. Pearn go, it now seems inspired. The results speak for themselves, obviously, but also from what we can perceive when watching games, we have a more dynamic coaching team, who is more animated behind the bench, and a dedicated defenceman coach with possibly more credibility and knowledge in that area. The special teams seem to be rounding into form. So it might be an unconventional decision that wasn’t done in the best or most delicate manner, but in hindsight it seems it was a necessary step.
Hot Stove segment, Montreal discussion at 6:40 mark.

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