The Great Defender by Larry Robinson

Author:Larry Robinson [Robinson, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7710-7237-6
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2014-11-04T05:00:00+00:00

Jacques Lemaire resigned as head coach that summer of 1985 and was given the role of director of hockey personnel. The decision really threw the team for a loop, and I had no inkling that he was even thinking of resigning—but knowing Jacques the way I did, that wasn’t unusual. He was always very good at keeping things to himself.

Jacques suggested that assistant coach Jean Perron be made the head coach. Jean had been with us in 1984–85 and had been a successful coach with the University of Moncton’s hockey team as well as an assistant with Canada’s Olympic team. But he had no NHL experience. I never really felt like I connected with Jean. He was a very nice man—he was fair and he worked hard—but I never got a handle on him.

We started the 1985–86 season with a rookie coach overseeing a lineup filled with rookies. Guys like Kjell Dahlin, Sergio Momesso, Stéphane Richer, Patrick Roy, and Brian Skrudland had all joined our roster that season. Early on, Jean called a meeting of his veterans, asking for our support, which we vowed to give him. The problem, though, was that as the season went on, guys realized that Jean wasn’t able to instill discipline, so they openly defied him—which is a death sentence for any coach.

Lemaire both nurtured and challenged us, but Perron’s style resulted in tumultuous relationships with a few of the players and some of the staff. Notable was a very public feud with Chris Nilan, which resulted in Nilan getting traded to the Rangers after a confrontation with the coach.

Our lineup was frequently juggled, partly due to injury but partly to find some chemistry, and as a result, nobody knew which Montreal Canadiens team was going to show up on any given night. We would go into Philadelphia or Long Island and whip the Flyers and the Islanders (both tough teams), but then we’d lose home games to weaker squads like Minnesota or Los Angeles.

There was a divide in the team, and we had lost confidence in Perron. Late in the season, I couldn’t hold back any longer: after Jean put us through a 90-minute practice that left us panting, I asked Red Fisher of the Montreal Gazette, “Is he telling us that we’re out if shape after 73 games of the regular season? Losing games is a problem, so we’ve got problems. We’ve got a lot of problems. And the only way you solve problems is to get some discipline on the ice.” I guess he wanted to show us how tough he could be, but if he wanted respect from the players, he had to respect us, too.

The media swirled with stories about Perron’s imminent firing, and we had players-only meetings to try to sort things out. Finally, Serge Savard and Jacques Lemaire called a meeting where Serge made it abundantly clear that there would be no coaching change and that he was committed to Jean Perron.

We finished behind the first-place Nordiques in the Adams Division that season, and things weren’t all bad.

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