Roz's Rant: Calm Winds Blowing over Jacques Martin

Just outside of my hometown of Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland there is a stretch of highway sandwiched between the mountains and the sea where the wind blows so fiercely that it has been known to derail trains. The CN Railway used to employ a gentleman by the name of Lachie MacDougall, and would call him up to check that it was safe to run the trains through.

That was years ago and the trains and Lachie have long gone but the winds still blow so fiercely that there are times when local residents will not brave the area, and transport trucks miss their delivery deadlines because the Mounties have shut down the one highway out of town.

Why am I telling you this and what does it have to do with the Montreal Canadiens?

Well I am about to pull a Lachie MacDougall and tell you which way the wind is blowing and how hard.

Fresh on the heels of news that the Washington Capitals have parted ways with Bruce Boudreau—the Carolina Hurricanes also dropped Paul Maurice in favour of ex-Hab assistant coach Kirk Muller—came the usual cries for the dismissal of Jacques Martin from behind the Canadiens bench.

Let me put it bluntly: barring something unforeseeable such as a 10-game losing streak, Martin's job is safe.

I will admit that some of his decisions are truly head scratchers for me.

Michael Cammalleri is not, nor will ever likely be, a sound defensive player. Yet it does not deter Martin from putting Cammalleri on the penalty kill. I can only suppose that, unlike me, Martin believes that if he hammers long and hard enough, a square peg can be forced into a round hole.

Yet my dislike of this coach goes right back to the day he was announced and it stems directly from his record.

In his 1,286 games as head coach of an NHL team, he has a Win-Loss percentage of .450.

His best year was with 1998-99 in Ottawa, when he won the Jack Adams trophy for Coach of the Year, and the Sens won their division. Looking at his entire body of work though, he is a mediocre coach who had one great year.

When he was initially hired my first thought was that the Habs will continue to be a bubble team and that RDS would be happy to have a French-speaking coach.

The fans who had long griped about Canadiens' rookie coaches, would finally be getting the experience they had felt was lacking under Guy Carbonneau.

Be careful what you wish for.

A coach with over 1000 games in the NHL does not lack for experience, but his record is hardly impressive either. I found it hard to believe that his mediocre record would suddenly skyrocket in the fishbowl existence that is the city of Montreal.

Rewinding to the playoffs of two years ago, this mediocre coach, assisted by Kirk Muller, rode a red-hot goalie and some hard workers into an Eastern Conference Finals berth—Montreal subsequently lost to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Martin's had his bit of luck in Montreal too, and some of that is no doubt due to the defense first system I abhor.

Fast forward to present day and the Habs are still nowhere near the top tier of their own division or conference, let alone the league. What promise they showed almost two seasons ago has been revealed to be the aberration it was all along.

But Martin did get this team into the playoffs last season as well, and may even do so again this season.

Currently the Habs are only a couple of points out of a playoff berth, and no matter what the insightful statisticians will tell us, teams and players always point out that the playoffs are a new season and anything can happen.

Under Martin I see no great progression for this team, but then again he's not the only coach to have run the Habs bench since their last championship almost 19 years ago. So it's hardly fair to hold him up as the pariah of all the ills this team is suffering.

Injuries are also part of the reason Martin is currently safe.

This is his third season working with a depleted defensive corps and under his system they are the legs the team stands on, Carey Price included. That he even made the playoffs last season with a dozen different defensemen is entirely to his credit.

This season he's working once again with too many injuries, both on the blueline and at forward. He has problems with his powerplay, been given new assistant coaches, lost one of his long time associates and been given too many rookies to babysit.

It is a heavy load for any coach to bear.

So why is it the Canadiens have not evolved into a high level team? Other than that one post-lockout season where they finished top in the league, have they ever looked like they could reclaim Lord Stanley's trophy?

That's not all on Martin.

If the Habs are out of contention by late January there might be a coaching change. If the Canadiens inexplicably go on a double-digit losing streak there might be a coaching change.

Barring such drastic failures, he has bought his goodwill from the organization by hauling this injury-riddled, under-performing group into the post-season two years running, delighting the fans and generating massive playoffs revenue for the team's owners.

If he does it for a third consecutive year I am convinced he will ride out the fourth year of his contract as well. Jacques Martin is a competent coach. The problem for him is that he is coaching in Montreal, where mere competency is not good enough.

And as a fan I must bear some culpability for this team's fortunes too. I may want things to change, but I don't send a clear message where it counts the most.

Canadiens fans might be a generation removed from seeing the Habs routinely slide into the elite teams category, but there are still enough of us around to keep those fires burning bright when common sense would threaten to spoil our fun.

The fact is as a Habs fan I pay a premium for what is essentially a mediocre product. Or at least I did up until recently.

This year instead of my usual jaunt to Montreal to take in a game wherein I would pay Geoff Molson around $600 of my hard earned salary, I'm going to use that money to lie on a tropical beach instead.

Meanwhile it's still safe for the Jacques Martin Express to roll on threw. The winds of change aren't blowing hard yet.

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Rosalyn used to frequent the old Forum during her early childhood when her father was a corporate season ticket holder, where she fell in love with Larry Robinson, so her lifelong obsession with the Habs is entirely his fault.

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(Photo by Philip MacCallum/Getty Images North America)

Posted in: geoff molson,Jacques Martin,kirk muller,montreal canadiens