In an exclusive interview with The Athletic mediathe former head coach of the Montreal Canadiens Dominique Ducharme explained that he was never able to sit down with Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton in order to understand what was asked of him by the end of the season.
Should he keep trying to win games at all costs with the small squads he had on hand or focus on youth development? It was impossible for him to know.
“It’s the part that hurts me, or disappoints me the most, not having had the chance to sit down with them to tell them how I see hockey,” Ducharme told The Athletic. If the plan was to lose the most games and get the kids to play, I would have liked to know that because I would have taken a different approach with them.
Ducharme also reacted to criticism from his detractors who accuse him of having deprived Cole Caufield of the Calder trophy. Under Ducharme, the sniper was limited to one goal in 30 games while with St-Louis, he hit the target 22 times in 37 games.
“I find it flat, admitted the hockey man. When I hear things like that, it’s like I don’t want Cole to score 40 goals. I would have loved him to score 40 goals!”
The native of Joliette was also questioned about his sometimes a little too rigid game system. He did not seem to believe that this was directly linked to the team’s failures last season.
Read the full article from The Athletic.