Less than a year after Dominique Ducharme led the Montreal Canadiens on an unlikely run in the Stanley Cup finals, the team fired its head coach and selected Hall of Fame member Martin St. Louis as an interim replacement.
St. Louis has no experience as a coach in the NHL, but he was appointed as a special teams consultant for the Columbus sapphire Jackets under John Tortorella for about half a season during the campaigns.
The man of 46 years and was inducted into the hall of fame after a successful career during which he has amassed 391 goals and 642 assists in 1-134 matches.
The club has also revamped its front office since its appearance in the Cup final. Montreal fired former general manager Marc Bergevin and appointed former New York Rangers DG Jeff Gorton as executive vice president of hockey operations in November. The Canadiens then hired former player-agent Kent Hughes as general manager in January.
Gorton and St. Louis were both with the Rangers when the latter played the last two seasons of his career in New York. Gorton was the deputy general manager of this team at the time.
Montreal ranks last in the NHL standings with a record of 8-30-7 in. The Habs has a 23-46-14 record in 83 regular season games under Ducharme and 13-9 playoffs.
The New Jersey Devils defeated the Canadiens 7-1 on Tuesday night, the fifth consecutive game in which Montreal conceded at least five goals and the third time in that time when the team conceded at least seven goals.
Montreal played without goalkeeper Carey Price and captain Shea Weber for the duration of the campaign, while many others also ran out of time.
The Habs entered the action on Wednesday night after posting a worse 3.98 goals per game in the league and ranking penultimate with 2.2 goals per contest.
The organization brought Ducharme as an assistant coach and promoted him to the boss during the dismissal of Claude Julien last February. Ducharme was interim head coach until the team officially removed that label on July 13.