by Shannon Penfound, Staff Writer and Event Coordinator, All Habs Hockey Magazine

WINNIPEG, MB. — Habs fans know that Michel Therrien tends to play favourites. While Marc Bergevin  likes to lean towards allowing younger players to step up and take on bigger roles, Therrien is known to favour certain veterans on the Montreal bench, which can sometimes prevent the younger players from breaking out successfully. Ultimately, the final say comes down to Bergevin, but Therrien helps to control who plays when, the ice time that they receive, and the quality of relationships that the players experience with their coaching staff.

Danny Briere came to Montreal over the summer of 2013 and played one season in his home province. Briere was traded to the Colorado Avalanche this past July with one year left in his contract with the Canadiens. It was well-known that Therrien and Briere did not always see eye-to-eye. Briere averaged around 17 minutes of ice time per game during his time with the Flyers, and saw that TOI cut drastically to an average of 12:46 with the Habs. Briere is often considered a clutch player during the playoffs. While he averaged close to 19 minutes a game during his last three playoff seasons with the Flyers, he witnessed an average TOI of only 10 minutes this past playoff run with Montreal. Following the season, Briere spoke with Montreal media saying that his main focus at this point in his career is to be successful, “You can ask anyone, everybody wants to play more often. When I played 20 minutes a night, I wanted to play 25. What’s important for me is to be part of a winning team…I’m at a stage in my career where winning is my priority².”

Briere produces the best results when he has set line mates, while Therrien is known for juggling his lines in order to produce the best results. A few players on the Montreal bench were moved between lines relatively often, including Briere, despite rumours of him likely maintaining a spot on one of the top two lines upon his signing in 2013. This certainly could have contributed to Briere’s less than stellar record this past season. A similarly poor performance occurred during Briere’s final year in Philly, where he was bumped around from line-to-line and did not manage to find his groove until well-into the season.

A combination of the problems presented above could have led to Briere’s mediocre performance during the regular season in Montreal. If a player and a coach do not have a mutual understanding, it can certainly lead to performance issues. Most importantly, team dynamics revolve around trust, and whether or not athletes feel as though there is a level of fairness among all players¹. According to Mark Anshel¹, athletes perceive levels of fairness based on the following three concerns:

1. A coaches assessment of a player’s skill vs a player’s assessment of his own skill
2. How the coach communicates his views to the athletes on his team
3. Whether or not the athlete feels as though the goal of the coach is to ensure that an athlete is happy and improving on his skillset

Therefore, seeing his ice time cut drastically, being moved from line-to-line, and switching from assistant captain with the Flyers to the proverbial ‘backburner’ with Montreal, could have all contributed to Briere and Therrien experiencing a falling out over the course of the 2013-2014 season.

Therrien has an interesting coaching style and is certainly not afraid to speak his mind. Coaches’ tend to have high expectations of their athletes. Sometimes, these high expectations can lead to discrepancies on the playing field due to the fact that the coach-athlete relationship heavily dictates athletic performance. For example, the game of hockey often involves trading players around based on a variety of factors, including skill assessments. When such assessments lead to accurate performance levels on the ice, everyone is happy¹. However, if an assessment leads to inaccurate expectations surrounding an athlete’s skill level, the coach may engage in less than desirable behaviours. Briere was bought out by the Philadelphia Flyers following an average season. It is possible that Therrien had low expectations for Briere at the outset of their working relationship, and that these low expectations affected the level of coaching that Briere received. Low expectations often lead to  a lower quality of coaching, less persistent coaching, and less constructive feedback from the coach for players deemed ‘less-skilled’¹. What typically follows is the athlete picking up on these negative cues from their coach, resulting in poor athletic performance, which simply reinforces the existing assumptions made by their coach in the first place.

As much as I have put the onus on Therrien, Briere certainly needs to take his share of the blame. Though he suffered a season-interrupting concussion in October, which sidelined him for nearly a month, Briere consistently appeared to fade into the background during shifts. Being outshone by young forwards like Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher, Briere put up only 25 points in 69 games with Montreal. Additionally, it was rumoured that Briere approached Therrien and requested more ice time, perhaps leaving both parties with some bitter feelings. He did manage to come through with a few amazing plays during the playoffs, in regular Briere fashion, but it wasn’t enough to save him from being traded to the Colorado Avalanche for P.A. Parenteau and a fifth-round draft pick in 2015. The deal, by the way, was an unbelievable one for the Habs. Briere is 36 years old and has likely seen his best days with the NHL. As a veteran in the league, one would have expected Briere to step up and shine through potential discrepancies that occurred between himself and Therrien. But the real question is: will this type of relationship happen again?

If Therrien, now without the buffer of Gerard Gallant, chooses to take a similar coaching approach to other players as he did with Briere, we could see a few more coach-athlete relationship issues this season. These players are professionals and have dealt with their share of coaching styles over the course of their careers. That being said, the goal of any athlete is to impress his coach in order to remain on good terms with both the team and the staff, resulting in more ice time and performance confidence. Therrien seems more collected than in past years. Through 24CH, we are able to see that Therrien genuinely cares for this team. While he doesn’t believe in excuses, he also understands the importance of reinforcement and praise. That being said, it could be argued that his sometimes volatile temper lands him in hot water, and is perhaps partially to blame for the sometimes poor coach-athlete relationships witnessed within the organization.

I would suggest to keep an eye on Lars Eller, as well as the new members of the Canadiens bench this season, to see if Therrien’s temper and coaching style contributes to poor performance and coach-athlete relationship issues in Montreal during the 2014-2015 season. Though he is no longer a Canadien, I wish Danny Briere all the best in Colorado and look forward to see the Habs face him and his new team in a few week’s time.

1. Weinberg, R.S., & Gould, D. (2011). Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology (5^th ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
2. Fontaine, H. (2014, June 6). A Quest on Hold. Retrieved from http://canadiens.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=722127.