Michel Therrien’s Positive Decision Making

By Jared Book, Staff Writer, All Habs Hockey Magazine

MONTREAL, QC — When Michel Therrien announced early on in the season that ice time would have to be earned, a lot of fans and media rolled their eyes and groaned and assumed that there would still be bouts of favoritism shown and ice time that is not deserved continue to be given.

Then, Daniel Briere was put on the fourth line in practice, and everybody thought how nice it was to have the new guy shown as the scapegoat. Now say, a returning veteran who Therrien was known to show patience with, say oh, I don’t know… David Desharnais. Then, Therrien started actually playing the players who deserved it and because of injuries and lack of other potential options Michael Bournival ended up on the second line and has thrived so far in that role. Louis Leblanc was recalled and, has received increased responsibilities as he has earned it. Now, back to Desharnais. Tonight, after he has only one assist in 15 games so far this season, Therrien has officially lost patience with Desharnais who will be a healthy scratch for the Canadiens as they get set to face the St. Louis Blues.

Now, I am not here to say that Therrien’s decision making has been flawless. However, the fact that he is not wasting anytime in promoting or demoting players who earn it is a positive going forward and this team will win more games because of it. A big flaw people saw in Therrien’s decision making last year was being too passive when it came to ice time reduction for players who weren’t playing up to their potential. This year, that seems to be corrected as he has shown more faith into the young players like Brendan Gallagher, and Alex Galchenyuk and less in players like Briere and Desharnais when they have not proven their worth on the ice.

Most importantly, Therrien appears set to keeping his word and if you force players to play better to get ice time, that improves the team in two ways. One, the players who are performing better will play more and two, it forces the players to step up their game. The fact it only took Therrien a month to move Desharnais from second-line center to press box may seem like too long for the fans, but when you have to manage people and egos and not just names and numbers on a chalkboard, big changes can take time.

I don’t know anyone who a month and a half ago would have predicted that Leblanc would be a top-nine forward in Montreal and David Desharnais would be in the press box in the first week of November, but the fact that things can change that quickly on this team is showing that this team is ready to win, and is ready to make any decision to help the team.