Dominique Ducharme

Uh, the players really like Ryan, um, on the day that he was announced as a new head coach, uh, Mark Stone showed up at the press conference, sat in the, sat in the room, uh, says a lot about Mark says a lot about Ryan, uh, but the players want Ryan to succeed.

And he's surrounded by, uh, a real veteran group of assistant coaches in John Stevens, Dom Ducharme, and Sean Burke.

And then they brought in Mark Letestu.

He's not from St. Paul, Alberta, but right around there.

I know he's been here through this whole rebuild.

I mean, he was a key voice that started this rebuild when after the Canadiens got smoked by New Jersey in that game, and, and Dominique Ducharme's last game as a coach, and he said after the game, Anderson said, "It's no fun coming to the rink anymore." And I think that was the final nail in Ducharme's coffin as far as his coaching career.

And so to come from that to where they are now, I think Anderson wants to be part of this moving forward.

And, you know, his leadership ability, uh, speaks for itself, and the fact they put the A on, on his sweater, I think leads me to believe that the Canadiens see a future with Anderson beyond this season.

W- we, we all knew going into specific games, like, "Hey, this one's gonna be real tough." But he managed to take them from what was potentially a couple years of, like, nothing but despair, to being a fun team to watch, and kept them a fun team to watch through that rebuild, all the way to them surprising everybody making the playoffs two years ago, surprising everybody by getting back to the playoffs, and then not only getting back, but getting to the Eastern Conference Final.

Um, took Cole Caufield from, you know, potentially being ruined by Dominique Ducharme into a 50-goal scorer.

Um, has presided over Nick Suzuki becoming one of the best defensive forwards in the entire league and 100-point player.

Uh, has clearly- Put a focus on allowing young, exciting talent to do what they do well, to put them in a position to succeed, and allow them to just go out there and create.

But at the same time, like, everything about what Martin St. Louis has done since he took over has been exactly as advertised and even better, right? Like-

Yeah

... um, you know, Nick Suzuki even mentioned, you mentioned, like, the, the dark days of Dominique Ducharme.

Like, I, I think people forget or maybe they don't wanna remember.

He also has presence behind the bench.

I mean, there's real presence there, something that Dominique Ducharme didn't really have.

And so, uh, it made perfect sense.

I'm glad that St. Louis is gonna stick around.

Mm-hmm.

And how do you take your coffee? Hey, Sean, Simon really disliked Dom Ducharme as a head coach.

Good assistant coach, but not a head coach.

Hey, man, you got to Stanley Cup final.

Smitty ran the penalty kill, ran the back end.

Dom Ducharme was on that coaching staff who You know, now he's in Vegas.

I was on that staff.

Smitty and I have a long relationship, coached against each other in the Ontario Hockey League, stayed in touch.