In A Land Where Panic Is As Plentiful As Oxygen

This afternoon–about 90 minutes before a game–the Montreal Canadiens fired assistant coach Perry Pearn. This is an unusual move, I don’t recall the last time a coach was fired this close to game time. Shaking up a team can happen in all kinds of ways–trades, benchings, healthy scratch, limiting ice time, verbal lashing at the bench.

This is the kind of thing I cannot recall Montreal doing during their glory years. Whatever the reason behind the move, whatever the result, it’s my opinion that there is much wrong with the Montreal Canadiens today. I think it’s reasonable to expect more firings and trades before the season is too far along, and ultimately there may be a change at coach and general manager.
Pearn was an assistant to Tom Renney when he was head man in NYC, and there were rumors that Pearn had been offered a job with the Oilers after the Quinn palace coup. Pearn’s 3-on-3 hockey camps are well known in Western Canada and many NHL players use them to prepare for their training camps.

Good luck to the Montreal Canadiens. I can’t help but think the team had bigger problems than Perry Pearn.