“I know everyone would love to hear us say the P-word…”
Jeff Gorton, vice-president of hockey operations for the Montreal Canadiens, quickly set the table. The “P-word” is “playoffs”, or eliminatory series, in French. From the second minute of his speech, Monday morning, on the occasion of the traditional golf tournament launching the new season, he made it clear that he would not pronounce it.
And he kept his promise, never once uttering the hated new term in almost 14 minutes on the microphone. Club owner and president Geoff Molson, general manager Kent Hughes and head coach Martin St-Louis have maintained the same reserve, escaping here and there but never committing to making it a goal.
The overall message, however, could not be clearer. The 2023-2024 campaign will take place under the sign of “growth”, a word which had obviously been chosen to explain (or not) where the Habs are in their reconstruction process. For another season, at least, we are appealing to the “patience” of fans.
“We’re going to try to improve every day,” explained Jeff Gorton. I know it’s cliché, and I’m sorry, but that’s how we move forward. This is what we want. »
During his end-of-season review last April, Kent Hughes explicitly indicated that his “expectations” were going to be raised for this fall.
We can understand why. CH has just finished 32nd then 28th in the general ranking. The reconstruction process has been clearly named – more than ever before, underlined Geoff Molson -, so much so that the Gorton-Hughes duo has been carrying out a cleaning from the cellar to the attic for a year and a half, both among the players and within franchise staff.
However, the notion of expectations remains abstract.
Geoff Molson: “Our team will be young, fast, and very talented. I want to see it grow even more. When they [the players] are ready, we are going to have a very exciting team. »
Kent Hughes: “I can’t give concrete meaning. I said, at the end of last season, that we would not arrive here saying that we will miss the playoffs, that it is already settled and that we will play without competing. Players have expectations of themselves. Me, I expect them to show up every game to win. »
The GM qualified his speech by conceding that wins and losses could not be completely removed from the equation. However, he is careful not to set objectives that would become a “burden” for the players, which would take away any room for maneuver. “Games are played for a reason. We’ll see where this takes us. »
Taking up a well-established credo, Martin St-Louis for his part recalled that “success is every day”. “You have to win the day,” he said. When you win a match, you think that you have won the day, but sometimes, this little victory is a [mirage], since you perhaps did not play your best match. It’s a band-aid when you need an operation. »
By approaching situations with “honesty” and focusing on player development, “success will be a side effect,” he believes.
The posture of the general staff of the Habs is obviously sensible in the context in which the team evolves. In a ruthless Atlantic division, the idea of reaching the playoffs is almost utopian, barring extraordinary performances from the Canadian combined with a simultaneous collapse of all his opponents.
“Most of our players are under 25 and have not reached their full potential,” recalled Kent Hughes. This youth, above all, appears in key positions. Let’s think about the club’s three best attackers, Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Kirby Dach. To Juraj Slafkovsky, youngest player in the league last year at 18. To the attackers Alex Newhook, acquired during the summer, and Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, a revelation in the second half of the season. Or to defenders Kaiden Guhle, Jordan Harris, Justin Barron and Arber Xhekaj, who have all been part of the regular rotation in 2022-2023.
All these young people arrive with a heavier baggage of experience than last year, noted Martin St-Louis. And everyone will be given more responsibilities than before, confirmed Kent Hughes. The latter acknowledged that asking players at the start of their career to put collective interests almost exclusively before their individual interests was part of the challenge.
Jeff Gorton nevertheless expressed a wish. In training camp as in the season, “you have to have players who push, push, push.” “We have to be competitive every night,” he said.
All the leaders also underlined their amazement at having seen around forty players converge on the Brossard training center in August, without the organization forcing them to return to town. If the players did it quietly, it’s pretty obvious that their bosses wanted it out.
“It shows their enthusiasm and commitment,” analyzed Gorton.
“Enthusiasm can take us a long way,” Hughes added.
But to what extent? “The answer is on the ice,” concluded Geoff Molson.
