No matter how you look at it, it has been a disastrous year for the Montreal Canadiens.
Andrei Markov is still hurt. Captain Brian Gionta is out indefinitely. Scott Gomez has demonstrated once again he is no longer a top-six forward despite his ridiculous cap hit.
Assistant coach Perry Pearn was fired. Head coach Jacques Martin was fired, which lead to a language debate in Montreal. The general manager and the owner added fuel to the fire pretty much saying interim head coach Randy Cunneyworth will be replaced at the end of the year.
Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong for le Bleu-Blanc-Rouge.
Magazine hits the shelves Thursday: Inside the long pathetic fall of the once great Montreal Canadiens empire
Which brings me to Mike Cammalleri. He talks a lot about accountability. He hasn’t been able to find the back of the net, which is one of the reasons Martin and Pearn are out of work. Instead of taking some of the blame for it, he told a group of reporters that it was because his ice time was diminished, that he wasn’t being used enough. He hinted that if the team no longer wants him, he’d be more than happy to take his talents elsewhere.
Aren’t leaders supposed to see their team through the thick and thin? How do those comments help the Canadiens come together? How do they help the team cause? I thought that for a team to mesh players had to set their ego and personal interest aside.
A few years ago, the Canadiens felt it was time to clean house and change the core. They’ve got a lot of good pieces in place but if Cammalleri thinks he’s bigger than the team, if he doesn’t want to be around, then maybe it’s time to read between the lines and get someone who does.
It would be easy to pile on, to criticize and point fingers. Adversity either makes you stronger or exposes what you’re really made of. For the most part, this is the same team that went to the Eastern Conference Final two years ago. It’s the same team that pushed the Boston Bruins to the brink of elimination in the post-season last year. Was it luck? Of course not. This is still a very good hockey team.
As for Cammalleri, this bump in the road is demonstrating who’s in it for the team and who’s in it for themselves.