At his recent media availability, Kent Hughes said that Martin St. Louis has begun to identify a few candidates to succeed Richardson, and as Max Truman of Danslescoulisses.com reports, there are reportedly just under ten candidates on that list.
At least that's what Renaud Lavoie mentioned on TVA Sports on the sidelines of this year's NHL draft at the Bell Centre.
If we can scratch Rick Bowness' name off this list, there are other very interesting candidates and during the broadcast of the Exit the Zone podcast, Jérémie Rainville, Guillaume Lefrançois, Stéphane Waite and Alexandre Pratt threw out some names that could be called upon to replace Richardson.
Among the names proposed, there were those of Alain Nasreddine, Sylvain Lefebvre, Joel Bouchard and a certain Ulf Samuelsson. Some will say that this name comes out of left field but think again.
The former NHL defenseman lost his job with the Panthers when Bill Zito hired a new head coach in Paul Maurice and Samuelsson was the defenseman coach during Martin St-Louis' two seasons with the Rangers.
This means that the two know each other very well and they could work together again, but this time behind the Habs bench.
Other candidates have been mentioned such as Rob Ramage, Dan Boyle and even Guy Boucher, the former coach of the Lightning and the Senators, but in his case, Alexandre Pratt has big doubts that he wants to return behind an NHL bench.
Although the process to replace Richardson is not very advanced, the fact that Martin St-Louis has compiled a list of potential candidates shows how much he wants to surround himself with the best possible assistants for his first full season at the helm of the Canadiens.
To be continued.
POLL | ||
Who could very well succeed Luke Richardson as assistant coach of the Canadiens? | ||
Sylvain Lefebvre | 115 | 23.6 % |
Alain Naserredine | 41 | 8.4 % |
Jo�l Bouchard | 186 | 38.1 % |
Ulf Samuelsson | 146 | 29.9 % |
List of polls |