MONTREAL – Canadian world junior championship coach Dominique Ducharme has made the jump to the NHL as an assistant coach with the Montreal Canadiens.
It was exactly what the 45-year-old was looking for after 10 years in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with Halifax and Drummondville.
"First getting to the NHL," Ducharme said Friday. "I didn’t play in the NHL, so getting there is something and doing it with the Montreal Canadiens is really special for sure.
"I grew up a Canadien (fan) and now I am a Canadien. There’s no better place for me to be right now."
The Canadiens dropped assistant coaches Jean-Jacques Daigneault and Dan Lacroix after missing the playoffs for a second time in three years. But they handed a contract extension to goaltending coach Stephane Waite, who has been with the team for five years. Kirk Muller will return as associate coach.
They still need to hire an assistant to replace Daigneault in handling the defencemen, which they expect to do soon.
The moves are part of an off-season shakeup. On April 17, the club fired Sylvain Lefebvre, coach of their American Hockey League team, the Laval Rocket, which also missed the playoffs. Lefebvre has also yet to be replaced.
Head coach Claude Julien said Ducharme will be behind the bench as his so-called fourth coach, handling forwards and helping make in-game adjustments and other moves.
Julien filled a similar position on Mike Babcock’s staff at Olympic and World Cup tournaments.
"I put myself in Mike’s shoes and thought it’s not a bad thing having another set of eyes," said Julien. "Dom is really good at evaluating and making in-game adjustments, so we talked about that.
"I have no doubt that I made the right decision. We’re extremely comfortable with each other."
Ducharme has built an impressive resume in junior hockey and looks to have potential to be an NHL coach, perhaps even replacing Julien one day.
He was approached by other NHL clubs after Drummondville was eliminated from the playoffs but opted for Montreal.
In 2013, Ducharme took a Mooseheads team that included future Colorado Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon and Canadiens winger Jonathan Drouin to a Memorial Cup title, as well as winning the QMJHL coach of the year award. He moved to Drummondville in 2016 to be closer to his family.
He coached Canada twice at the world juniors, winning silver in 2017 and gold in 2018.
Drouin flourished as a scoring star under Ducharme in Halifax. Ducharme also knows Canadiens youngsters Charles Hudon, Victor Mete and Noah Juulsen from working on national age-group teams.
As a player, Ducharme was a centre at the University of Vermont in the early 1990s, where his teammates included future NHL stars Martin St. Louis and Tim Thomas.
But it was while playing pro with Anglet in France that he got the coaching bug.
During the 2001-02 season, head coach Carlos Gordovil took ill. As there were no assistants, Ducharme and Bob Ouellet, the father of Detroit Red Wings defenceman Xavier Ouellet, took over for two months as player-coaches.
"We were watching video, preparing practice, game plans and so on," said Ducharme. "That’s where I said ‘that’s what I want to do when I stop playing.’
"When I coached (junior A) in Joliette I brought Bob back and we worked together for four years. We had a lot of success and a lot of fun together and that’s where it started."
Julien inherited his coaching staff when he took over late in the 2016-17 campaign and, because the team did well, he kept them on this season. When they opted to make changes, Julien suggested Ducharme, only to find general manager Marc Bergevin thinking the same. They each met with the coach and decided to make an offer.
"There was a really good connection there," said Julien. "I was comfortable with what I heard and saw.
"Not only that, he’s a guy from Quebec and he’s a really good coach. I think it’s important for us to try to keep those guys around."
The 52-year-old Daigneault, whose contract was expiring, joined the Canadiens staff in 2012. He played for the team from 1989 to 1995, winning a Stanley Cup in 1993.
Lacroix, 49, who had one year remaining on his contract, has been with the club since 2014 after previously working as an assistant with the New York Islanders, Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers.
