Canadiens fire Ducharme, name Martin St. Louis interim head coach
Less than a year after Dominique Ducharme led the Montreal Canadiens on an improbable run to the Stanley Cup Final, the team dismissed its head coach and chose Hall of Famer Martin St. Louis as his interim replacement.
St. Louis doesn't have NHL coaching experience, but he was named a special teams consultant for the Columbus Blue Jackets under John Tortorella for approximately half a season across the 2019-20 and 2021 campaigns.
The 46-year-old was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018 after a stellar career in which he amassed 391 goals and 642 assists over 1,134 games.
The club has also overhauled its front office since its Cup Final appearance. Montreal fired former general manager Marc Bergevin and tabbed ex-New York Rangers GM Jeff Gorton as executive vice president of hockey operations in November. The Canadiens then hired former player agent Kent Hughes as GM in January.
Gorton and St. Louis were both with the Rangers when the latter played the final two seasons of his career in New York. Gorton was that team's assistant GM at the time.
Montreal sits last in the NHL standings with an 8-30-7 record in 2021-22. The Habs went 23-46-14 in 83 regular-season games under Ducharme and 13-9 in the playoffs.
The New Jersey Devils walloped the Canadiens 7-1 on Tuesday night, marking the fifth straight game in which Montreal allowed at least five goals and the third time in that span in which the squad gave up at least seven.
Montreal has played without goaltender Carey Price and captain Shea Weber for the duration of the campaign, while numerous others have also missed time.
The Habs entered Wednesday night's action having surrendered a league-worst 3.98 goals per game and ranked second-last with 2.2 goals for per contest.
The organization brought Ducharme on as an assistant coach in 2018 and promoted him to the lead job upon firing Claude Julien last February. Ducharme served as interim head coach until the squad formally removed that tag on July 13.
He signed a three-year extension with Montreal on the same day.