Montreal Canadiens Rumour: Down to Final 3 General Manager Candidates

The Montreal Canadiens fired general manager Marc Bergevin and his assistant Trevor Timmins on November 28th.

Jeff Gorton was hired to be the team’s Vice President of Hockey Operations and oversee the entire management or front office of the team going forward. One of his top priorities is to find the next general manager.

Though Gorton is really Bergevin’s replacement, the team needs a general manager and perhaps a couple of assistants to fill out the managerial department. It has been a pretty quiet time when it comes to rumours about who will be hired, but a number of candidates did leak out weeks ago.

Renaud Lavoie sent out a list of eight names that would be interviewed in round one and those names included Patrick Roy, Emilie Castonguay, Daniele Sauvageau, Daniel Briere, Mathieu Darche, Kent Hughes, Marc Denis and Stephane Quintal. It sounds like this list was whittled down to just three.

According to Eric Engels of Sportnet, the Habs have narrowed their list, with Briere and Darche among the three candidates left standing.

What is interesting from Engels tweet is that he says others who were interviewed could land jobs with the club. That would suggest the team is not just going to hire a general manager, but will add a larger staff in the coming days. Perhaps Sauvageau or Briere end up with the assistant’s job. Maybe Quintal lands a job in player development. A head pro scout to take the lead at the NHL Draft would be great, but I think that is a job Gorton wants to keep for himself. Then maybe an agent like Castonguay or Hughes would make sense to be a contract negotiator.

Who knows. But it does sound like the team will hire more than just a general manager and that it could happen very soon.

It was also interesting that Engels clearly says there are three candidates left and he only named two people. Who is the third?

Well, shortly after Engels broke this news, Pierre LeBrun on TSN threw out another name.

It sounds like Kent Hughes, the agent for Patrice Bergeron and Kris Letang (who are both free agents this summer) is still in the running.

So the next general manager is likely to be Darche, Briere or Hughes. We are connecting a couple of dots there, patching together reports from Engels and LeBrun, but it very much sounds like we are down to the final three candidates.

Darche still probably makes the most sense after being a big part of the front office that won the past two Stanley Cups in Tampa Bay. Gorton did mention at his initial press conference that he might look for someone like an agent who brings a different element than himself. That would bode well for Mr.Hughes.

We will have to wait and see. But it sounds like we won’t have to wait very long and we would be surprised either because we know it will be either Darche, Briere or Hughes.