On Wednesday morning, the Habs announced several changes to their off-ice
personnel. Michel Therrien has a new assistant coach as Daniel Lacroix
joins the team from the New York Rangers while Rob Ramage replaces Patrice
Brisebois as a Player Development Coach. Additionally, three others saw
their job descriptions change as Trevor Timmins, Rick Dudley, and Scott Mellanby
all have new titles.
Lacroix is no stranger to the organization as he spent a year as an assistant
with the Hamilton Bulldogs in 2009-10 before moving on along with Guy Boucher to
Tampa Bay. Overall, he has seven years of NHL assistant coach experience
with the Lightning, the Islanders, and most recently, the Rangers. Lacroix
joins J.J. Daigneault as coaches on Therrien’s staff that have come over from
the Rangers. He also has five years of coaching experience with Moncton of
the QMJHL.
Ramage joins the organization from St. Louis where he spent the last two
years working as a scout for the Blues. Prior to that, he spent a season
behind the bench of the London Knights as an assistant coach in Jarred Tinordi’s
final season of junior. He also isn’t a complete stranger to the
organization as he suited up for parts of two seasons with the Habs in the early
1990’s, including playing in seven games in their Stanley Cup winning season in
1993. Ramage also has been a teammate of both Daigneault and GM Marc
Bergevin.
Trevor Timmins has seen his job title change a few times in recent years.
On top of retaining his role as the Director of Amateur Scouting, he is now the
Vice-President of Player Personnel. Scott Mellanby is leaving the Player
Personnel department and he has now been named Assistant GM. It’s unknown
at this time whether or not a Director of Player Personnel, the role that
Mellanby had last year, will be added at a later date. As for Rick Dudley,
he now is Montreal’s Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations, vacating the
Assistant GM role.
In other news Wednesday, the Habs and P.K. Subban submitted their one year
arbitration requests. As expected, the Habs came in low at $5.25 million.
It’s important to remember that the figures exchanged are simply based on
comparable contracts and don’t necessarily reflect a clubs’ evaluation of a
player. In other words, they’re offering considerably more than that
long-term. Subban, meanwhile, filed an $8.5 million request. His
case will be more challenging than it may seem on the surface as the
comparables and
precedents aren’t exactly in his favour. The arbitration hearing is
set for 9 AM EST on Friday.