Pierre Gauthier - Strange to the End

A very strange period in Habs history has come to an end.

Stranger than Juha Lind having a child with Gino Odjick.

It was as weird as it gets. To take a page out of Lewis Black's book, it was so weird that the left side of your brain looks at the right side of your brain and says, it's pretty dark in here.

The weird press conferences where almost no information whatsoever was conveyed to the media and the public, by extension. The sudden introduction of Mister into his lexicon when naming players then not only exacerbated the disconnect between the GM and the fans, it begged questions about a chronic social awkwardness that stands in stark contrast with the nature of the position he occupied. 

Unfit. Unwelcoming. Unrelenting.

There was no yield in Pierre Gauthier's cone of silence. Over time, he isolated himself to the point of alienation where only echoes of his pale voice would bounce off its lonely walls.

Darren Dregger today said that a dark cloud, a black hole had enveloped the city during Gauthier's tenure.  How damning is that assessment. Is that a brand Geoff Molson could market comfortably? 

Gauthier cut any emotional ties with the media with whom that social apprehension became pathological. He became increasingly disliked by the fans who could not thread the man into the emotional fabric hatched out of their love for a long line of wonderful people that drew a paycheque from this organization.

It this is just about the man's character. We haven't even gotten to the hockey part yet.

And there is no need to really. No point in rehashing here what you can read elsewhere. Most hockey moves were highly questionable, if not damaging to the team for years to come. Including this year, the team had a remaining invested total value of 109 million dollars in 4 of their top 6 forwards. Last week, those 4 guys together had amassed 79 points in 167 games. That's an average of 38 points per season per player. It's incomprehensible. And then the moves made concerning the blue line, in and of themselves, are all grounds for dismissal.

In the failure that he was from a hockey standpoint, Gauthier never showed any redeeming qualities that coaxed the fans into patience. They just didn't like him and in his highly spotlit position he did very little to be liked.

It was the only move to make. That post-mortem would have been a scathing exercise, and there was no point in putting the man through it. In the end Geoff Molson today became the real owner and finally arrived on the scene to make his voice heard. Strong, reassuring, emphatic with a fan base the next GM will have to cater to with a demeanour far more aware, respectful and forthcoming than Pierre Gauthier was ever able to exhibit.