Our wide variety of contributors don’t always agree on things. That’s to be expected from a website that’s for the fans, by the fans. Well now our contributors have a place to argue their differing opinions in our ‘1-on-1 Battles’ series.

Today’s topic: The Montreal Canadiens Should Fire Michel Therrien Now (no matter what Marc Bergevin says)

The battlers: Tina Poole vs. Antoine Mathieu 

TP: The Montreal Canadiens are currently in a two-month-long tail spin. Naturally, everyone and their grandmother is calling for head coach Michel Therrien to be fired. However, I think one should not be too hasty in firing Therrien. Here are my reasons why he should stay as head coach.

Injuries

This season the Canadiens played the majority of their games missing Carey Price and Brendan Gallagher. Price is the best goalie in the world at the moment. In fact, last season he led the league in virtually every statistical category and probably masked some of the shortcomings of the Habs. Losing Price meant rookie Mike Condon was forced to take on a bigger role than he would have had Price been healthy. Further, it meant that there was less margin for error defensively. Gallagher, on the other hand, was having a career year. He makes those around him better. He is just 23 years old and figures to get better as he learns the game. Missing both these players meant other players were asked to step into roles they were not ready to assume.

Roster

General Manager Marc Bergevin is the one who gave Therrien the players he has to work with. It is not Therrien’s fault that Bergevin signed Alexander Semin (released in December) and traded for Zack Kassian (suspended by the league and put in the NHL’s alcohol/drug rehab program; traded to Edmonton upon reinstatement). I think Therrien is doing the best he can with what he’s got. The personnel this season is virtually the same as last season. The two major moves from the summer, and Bergevin seems to be falling into a pattern of complacency. The Habs consistently make the playoffs and have gone multiple rounds the past two seasons. Thus, Bergevin doesn’t want to mess with success and overhaul the roster.

Past record

The Montreal Canadiens have gone deep in the playoffs in two of the past three seasons (conference finals in 2014 and conference semi-finals in 2015). Therrien deserves a third crack at winning it all with this team. The past two regular seasons, he has coached the team to 50-22 and 46-28 records. I can see the Habs getting to 40 wins should Price come back and get hot.

Standings

Montreal is right there when it comes to making the playoffs. Coming out of the all-star break, the Habs are 3 points back of Pittsburgh for the 2nd wildcard spot. Price should return next month from injury. He is capable of stealing games the Habs shouldn’t win. It should ease the pressure to score lots of goals. Looking at the remaining games on the schedule, Montreal plays 17 of its final 32 games at the Bell Centre and 17 of those games are versus non-playoff teams. It is not the right time to fire Therrien when the playoffs are very much in reach.

Onus on players

Above all, the players have to share some of the responsibility for this slump. Scoring is once again a big issue. Also, the Habs are giving the puck away far too much. The players are the ones on the ice. Therrien can implement a game plan, but it is up to the players to execute said game plan.

I’m not saying Michel Therrien shouldn’t be fired at the end of the season should Montreal miss the playoffs. All I’m saying is let’s give Therrien the benefit of the doubt. There have been many things that have gone against Montreal this season. Price should be back sometime next month and then we can see what Montreal is capable of fully healthy.

AM: Apologies Tina, but I’m afraid you’re wrong on this one. The Montreal Canadiens should absolutely fire Therrien right now, and here’s why:

Injuries

Injuries are a part of the game; every team is affected by them, some more than others, but it shouldn’t justify how bad the team has been playing in the past two months. It’s easy to say that the Canadiens are missing their best player (and last year’s league MVP) but the loss of Carey Price shouldn’t turn them into the atrocious team we’ve been wasting our evenings on for the last 10 weeks. It’s not the first time that a team loses their best player for a long stretch and it certainly won’t be the last time.

The Pittsburgh Penguins were without their two best players (Sidney Crosby missed 41 games and Evgeni Malkin missed 39 games) for practically half of the season and still managed to finish the year with more than 100 points. Another example is Detroit during the 2013-14 season, they were among the top of the league for Man Games Lost with a total of 418 games. Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Johan Franzen and Darren Helm all missed significant time for them that season and Mike Babcock made the right adjustments to keep the Red Wings’ consecutive playoffs streak alive.

The Devils lost Martin Brodeur during the 2008-09 season and had to rely heavily on longtime NHL journeyman Scott Clemmensen for 40 of those games and they still finished at the top of their division. Just as recently as last year, the New York Rangers, a team whose roster resembles the Habs a lot, lost Henrik Lundqvist for a number of weeks and the team rose through adversity and actually finished first in the league. Even a very average Nashville Predators team who was without their elite goaltender, Pekka Rinne, for more than 2/3 of the season during the 2013-14 season still finished with a respectable 88 points and almost squeezed into the playoffs despite playing in the league’s most brutal division.

At the end of the day injuries are not a valid excuse and doesn’t explain how our team has only won six games since the start of December.

Roster

Is this roster perfect? Absolutely not. Does our record reflect how bad our team is without Price? No.

Marc Bergevin obviously has a portion of the blame to take here since he has yet to fix the team’s main problem since taking over (scoring). Bergevin no longer has the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these reclamation projects he’s been trying in the last few years (Briere, Parenteau & Semin). Thomas Vanek was obviously a solid addition to the team but since that acquisition, nada. This summer, our GM will have no choice but to acquire a top six forward during the summer. It can be via free agency (Kyle Okposo, Mikkel Boedker or Andrew Ladd) or the trade market. I don’t care but enough is enough. It’s time to stop buying cheap lotto tickets and invest the surplus of assets we have into a player we can have long term.

That being said, the roster is still MUCH better than the record currently suggests. We have an elite defenseman, two defensemen who can handle top four duties (Markov and Petry), two fringe top four defensemen in Nate Beaulieu and Alexi Emelin and two decent bottom pairing guys in Greg Pateryn and Mark Barberio. Although it’s evident that we’re missing two top six forwards, Max Pacioretty is a 35+ goal scorer, Tomas Plekanec can produce between 55 and 60 points while bringing a two way game and given the right circumstances both Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk can produce 50 points. Lars Eller is a good third line center when used in a checking line role, Torrey Mitchell is a solid fourth line center, Dale Weise is a decent third line player when he actually grinds instead of thinking he’s some sort of all-star all of a sudden. Flynn, Byron and DSP are no worse than your average fourth line player and have performed up to expectations so far. Even without Price, this team should be playing .500 hockey.

In my opinion, the problem here is clearly the coaching. The players no longer want to play for Therrien. It was mentioned when he was hired that Therrien has a shelf life of two or three years before the players tune out and I think this is currently what we’re witnessing. He’s a good coach as far as motivation goes and implementing and blue collar attitude within the team but he’s very old school in his approach of the game and has ZERO sense of accountability.

David Desharnais has played over 17 minutes of ice time nineteen times this season! For a player who doesn’t even play on the PK, that’s simply impossible to fathom. The most mind boggling part in all this is that his time on ice has only been going up in our disastrous slump and the production is not even there to back it up (Desharnais has 7 points in 25 GP). Not only that but Desharnais ONLY has four (!) points on the PP despite spending a grand total of 117 minutes on the man advantage! Galchenyuk who’s ice time is finally starting to go up has 6 more points in 13 more minutes. How can you keep justifying as a coach Desharnais being sent on the top unit every game when he doesn’t even produce? It’s ridiculous.

Since I mentioned Galchenyuk, I might as well keep going on the subject of accountability and how it relates to our team’s third overall pick in 2012. Galchenyuk has been our best forward many games this season yet until recently, his ice time never went up. It stayed at around 14 to 15 minutes for no valid reason. You’d see him create a chance offensively, goalies freezes the puck or a whistle happens and next thing you know his line is off the ice. It’s simply frustrating to see our most promising young player not blossom because of the coach’s favoritism. It’s simple, give the ice time that Desharnais keeps getting to Galchenyuk and things will get better.

Anyway, it’s not the first time Therrien has done  this, he did the same in Pittsburgh when he unexplainably gave a tons of ice time to fringe NHLer Michel Ouellet. Based on this article covering Therrien’s stint behind the bench of the Pens, it seems like MT hasn’t learned from his mistakes and is going back to his old habits in times of desperation.

Gameplan

Based on this clip, the players are doing exactly what he wants them to do

The team is outshooting other teams (which quite frankly doesn’t really matter since they’re shots from the perimeter) and the players are chipping the puck and dumping it which is clearly and outdated approach. The only times I’ve liked our team’s style is when we’re playing an aggressive possession game like we were during the lockout season and at the start of this season. For some reason the team is back to their old ways and I’m just stunned as to why.

The reality is that the ‘gameplan’ that Therrien has in mind is for Price to be the best player on the planet and steal games for us. Price’s injury has exposed not only the team in a way (God knows this team isn’t a top three team in the league like they were last year) but also Therrien as a coach. There’s no system. PRICE IS THE SYSTEM. The fact that a team finished with fifty wins had their goalie win the Hart, the Vezina, the Jennings and the Ted Lindsay awards says it all. There’s no system in the hockey world that can justify that result. If it hadn’t been for Price’s spectacular play since the 2013-14 season, Therrien would have been unemployed by now.

Playoffs

Sure Montreal could make a push for the playoffs, but I don’t see the point. The buyers market is absurd right now and trading a second round pick (or more) for a rental like Radim Vrbata won’t bring us to the Stanley Cup. It’d be a lot smarter to trade some assets, draft in the top 10 of this year’s draft and make the proper adjustments during the off-season. I would pretty much write off this season at this point. Based on last year’s standings, it would take 98 points for the Habs to make the playoffs. That would require the team to go 20-6-6 for the rest of the season. That’s while taking in consideration that Price won’t be back for another two weeks minimum and that only the Leafs, Sabres and Jackets are semi-locks at missing the playoffs. That will make the final push for the playoffs infinitely hard for the teams trying to squeeze in. I’d rather take a step back this season and take two step forwards next season.