A cursory search for “FIRE MICHEL THERRIEN” finds two subsets of results: Articles from 2009, when he was actually fired by the Pittsburgh Penguins after he coached them to the Stanley Cup Final, and then a slew of articles written at the midpoint of last season after a brutal 20-game stretch.

Some attacked the Canadiens’ passive forechecking, which didn’t generate enough offense. Others, like this one from a plucky young blogger named Tyler Dellow, spelled out the diminishing returns when Therrien takes over a team: “A very disturbing pattern in Therrien’s career. When he comes in, things seem to get worse. When he exits, they improve.”

Where do Therrien’s 2014-15 Habs stand?

An offensively underwhelming team. Their 2.08 GAA in 12 playoff games is misleading: In fact, the Canadiens scored seven goals in five games in this series, the ones that were 6-2 pile-ons like Game 4. Their 2.61 GAA in the regular season placed them 20th and was actually up from their 2.55 GAA in the previous season; and yet it felt like Carey Price had to do more heavy lifting this season than last, hence his Hart Trophy nomination.

Their power play was at 17.2 percent last season and dipped to 16.5 percent this season. The Habs aren’t the first team in hockey to struggle mightily in the playoffs on the power play, but 2-for-36 is a special kind of terrible.

After the Montreal Canadiens were eliminated on Tuesday in Tampa Bay in Game 6, there were a few disturbing comments to emerge from the room.

P.K. Subban, one of the team’s small cadre of captains, on leadership:

“This is the playoffs. It’s about emotions, it’s about elevating your game physically and making sure your battle level is at a point where you can be a difference-maker on the ice.

“You can’t afford to have passengers. Everybody’s got to be a leader, and today I don’t think we had enough. We didn’t do enough to beat a good hockey team. We knew they were going to come out with their best effort tonight, and we didn’t match it.”

Said Therrien:

“I felt that physically and mentally we were drained. It’s disappointing but I guess those things happen.”

A lack of leadership and an inability to meet the emotional benchmark needed to win Game 6, after riding a wave of momentum from Game 5. Well, that’s not good.

Then again, neither is losing the first three games of a series, or losing seven of nine games against a division rival.

So what becomes of the Habs this offseason? And what, if anything, becomes of Therrien?

The first answer GM Marc Bergevin needs to find is on offense: Is Montreal’s inability to score a result of a roster he constructed that can’t generate goals, or is it about a system Therrien plays that doesn’t activate the goal-scorers on the roster?

From Arpon Basu of NHL.com:

The Canadiens were the top defensive team in the NHL this season, backed largely by Price, and that became their identity. When you are facing 29 other teams once at a time during the regular season, you can get by on that. But in the playoffs, when every team takes just as much pride in its defensive play, you need something else to lean on, and the Canadiens didn't have it.

Players like Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher, and even Pacioretty and Subban, are still on the upswing of their careers and have room to develop. But the infusion of some established offensive talent would fill a void this team had all season.

From Ken Campbell of The Hockey News, who calls Therrien one of the most polarizing coaches in the history of the Habs:

But Therrien has been criticized as a pedestrian coach when it comes to playing style and strategy. He steadfastly refused to stay with Alex Galchenyuk at center and is blamed for a style that focuses on dump and chase with a team that isn’t physically suited to playing that style. The Canadiens play without the puck an awful lot and P.K. Subban was bang on when he suggested the Canadiens have made goalie Carey Price’s job more difficult, not easier.

… Whatever the Canadiens do, they need to upgrade themselves at forward, particularly at center. Even though Plekanec is very good on faceoffs and plays a responsible game, he disappeared offensively during these playoffs, as did Desharnais. And in the absence of any help on the free agent market and trades being too difficult to make, the time is now for either Therrien or his replacement to make Galchenyuk a full-time center. Perhaps he won’t be the bona fide No. 1 guy for a year or two and that might mean the Canadiens take a step backward, but they’re never, ever going to know whether Galchenyuk is capable of doing the job unless they give him the chance and stick with him for an extended period of time.

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