'It was like men against boys' Michel Therrien notoriously lamented as coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was a cold January night in 2006 and his slumping team had just dropped a 3-1 stinker to the Edmonton Oilers.
Therrien threw the entire team under the bus that night and perhaps unwittingly, himself. He lambasted the player's soft defence and utter lack of passion, then concluded his exasperated diatribe by wondering aloud if he could possibly find a solution.
Despite the much publicized rant, Therrien managed to turn things around for the Penguins, eventually leading the team to the Stanley Cup finals in 2008. Though the Peguins lost to the Detroit Red Wings, the team looked poised to become perennial cup contenders. But by February of the following season it had all unravelled again and Therrien was sent packing. It was an inglorious end to what had once seemed a storybook tale for the former Habs coach. Adding insult to injury was his replacement, Dan Bylsma, leading the team to their third Stanley Cup in the same season, fulfilling a destiny Therrien surely felt he had earned.
When Therrien returned as coach for the Canadiens in 2012, that rant among other things, was firmly on the minds of fans. It was unsettling to know that the organization had placed its trust in a man whose past history included the most public display of losing a locker room in living memory. Secondary to that, was a lingering concern about whether Therrien was still capable of coaching at the professional level after a three-year absence from the bench.
We got our answer in the shortened 2012-2013 season when the Habs showed significant improvement. The mission was simple: make the playoffs. To that end, Therrien delivered. But the first round loss to a truculent Ottawa Senators team seemed to bring out a bit of the old, exasperated Therrien, although his frustration was mercifully not directed at his players.
Last season was something of a different story. Although Therrien more than delivered on the goal of the post-season, it was during the regular season when fans and pundits began to wonder which Michel Therrien was behind the bench. There were moments of what some might label strategic brilliance, like putting Peter Budaj between the pipes for a second time in Boston, as a healthy Carey Price sat on the sidelines. Then there were those head-scratching moments, such as stapling P.K. Subban to the bench in critical 3rd period situations, or virtually any time he let Douglas Murray on the ice.
As the season progressed, opinions in the Canadiens' fan-base and media alternated between various levels of frustration, confusion, surprise and muted admiration of Therrien's coaching abilities. When things went bad, Therrien stood silently behind the bench, looking remarkably like that bronze Rodin sculpture, while more than a few of us wondered if he was thinking 'what is the solution?'
The Habs solid performance in the post-season seemed to erase much of that doubt. Save for a couple of fumbles (see Douglas Murray again) Therrien adjusted strategy, boosted minutes of his top performers and most importantly, remained composed.
So the real question for the forthcoming season is: Which Michel Therrien will show up? Will the old habits resurface, or has the experience of the past two seasons become the wisdom that will take his coaching abilities to the next level?
It could be argued that there is a similarity between the Pittsburgh Penguins roster under Therrien and the 2014-15 Canadiens. Both are teams well equipped with a core group of young players with the capacity of becoming the league's best.
Similar too, is coaching a talented, but struggling team to a turnaround that led deep into the post season. In 2009, Therrien failed to capitalize on that past success, which ultimately led to his dismissal.
One hopes these similarities are not lost on Michel Therrien, and that somewhere behind that distant thoughtful gaze lies a man with something to prove.
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