It has been almost 13 years to the day since the Montreal Canadiens relieved Rejean Houle of his general manager responsibilities – a position he was collecting an income for over the course of five years from 1995-2000. As a child growing up, the Habs were my team. I remember watching them win the Stanley Cup in 1993 at 7 years old. More vividly I can remember crying after they lost game one and was convinced the series was over. Prior to 1995, I cannot recall ever viewing the team in a critical manner. Then a series of events led to an entire generation of Habs fans, a generation that I was in the middle of, grew up with Montreal being more of a punch line than the championship team they had been for a good part of the 20th century.

In November of 1995, the Canadiens decided Houle should be their next GM. Within a few weeks of this decision, we were parting ways with a man who brought us two Stanley Cups, the one player on the team that any fan would have staked their life on knowing he would retire as a Hab. It was not just that he was traded; it was the manner in which it happened. A man who loved and was beloved, he wanted nothing to do with the organization. This trade alone could be its own six-piece story and truthfully over the years has been the major source of my frustration for this era of the team and the GM. So I decided to look deeper and really challenge my view that Rejean Houle was the worst general manager in team history. Rather than just think it, I set out to prove it.

The Numbers

Houle was responsible for 30 trades during his tenure of four full seasons and parts of two others. Having looked at all 30 trades, 13 years later I have a hard time finding many that helped the team. Most of them clearly hurt the team immediately or did not help in the way he had anticipated. But let’s look deeper. In basically four seasons, the following are players that Rejean Houle both traded for and traded away in his brief tenure; Andrei Kovalenko, Pat Jablonski, Stephane Richer, Jocelyn Thibault, Gordie Dwyer, Scott Thorton, Murray Baron and Igor Ulanov. So we have eight players that were traded for and away covering over half of his 30 transactions. What is more startling is the turnaround on some of these trades:

Andrei Kovalenko – 9 months

– 9 months Pat Jablonski – 1 year, 3 months

– 1 year, 3 months Stephane Richer – 1 year, 4 months

– 1 year, 4 months Murray Barron – 4 months

– 4 months Igor Ulanov – two years, 1 month

– two years, 1 month Jocelyn Thibault – 2 years, 11 months

In a league where team dynamics will play more of a role than any of the other major sports, Canadiens management over these years had a revolving door of players coming in and out. Of the 30 trades on the books under the Houle era, I would give a positive grade to one. There were more pieces coming back, however it was essentially receiving Sheldon Souray for Vladimir Malakhov. Souray spent seven seasons with Montreal, anchoring the power play, becoming a leader in the dressing room and regularly being voted as the best looking player in the league. Malakhov was out of New Jersey the following year and remained in the league with two more teams over his final few years. So out of 30 trades, I am comfortable giving a passing grade here of maybe a “B” to Houle. However, the results here are not enough to satisfy any of the fan bases across hockey, let alone the fans in Montreal who view their home rink more as a cathedral than a hockey rink.

So was Rejean Houle the worst general manager in the history of the Montreal Canadiens? I’d love for you to convince me otherwise.

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