PARADISE, N.L. — Andrew Ryan isn’t surprised Dominique Ducharme is the new coach of the Montreal Canadiens. He believed it was only a matter of time before a window of opportunity opened and Ducharme would be moved up from an assistant coach to a bench boss.
That happened late last month when Claude Julien was fired as the Habs’ coach and Ducharme was promoted to run the team..
“He’s been a winner everywhere he’s been in junior,” said Ryan. “You can’t argue with his results.”
Ryan, from Paradise, can speak of Ducharme with experience. He played under Ducharme for three Quebec Major Junior Hockey League seasons with the Halifax Mooseheads, including the 2012-13 campaign when the Mooseheads won the President’s Cup QMJHL championship and the Memorial Cup.
Ducharme spent 10 seasons in the Q coaching Halifax and the Drummondville Voltigeurs. He also coached Canada in two world junior championships, winning gold in 2018 and silver in 2017. Not surprisingly, that got the attention of the pros and he was appointed a Canadiens assistant on April 27, 2018.
A little less than three years later, he has the top job with the Canadiens, who started the season strongly, but struggled in February, leading to Julien’s dismissal.
Montreal, which thumped the Winnipeg Jets 7-1 Saturday night to improve to 11-6-6. That includes a 2-1-2 record since Julien was fired and replaced by Ducharme, who said Saturday after the Winnipeg game he was confident players were buying into his methods.
“He’s definitely intense, but he had a great system in Halifax, snd he certainly had a way of getting everyone to buy into it.” — Andrew Ryan
“He’s definitely intense,” Ryan said, “but he had a great system in Halifax, snd he certainly had a way of getting everyone to buy into it.”
Among the players on that championship squad were present-day Canadien Jonathan Drouin and NHL star Nathan MacKinnon.
That championship year was Ryan’s third season in Halifax (he scored 21 goals) after graduating from the Newfoundland and Labrador major midget ranks with the St. John’s Maple Leafs.
“He was always about playing an up-tempo game,” Ryan said about Ducharme. “Our morning skates would be quick. They’d last 15 or 20 minutes. (The focus was to) move the puck and be hard on the puck and heavy on the forecheck.”
Ryan, 27, played 310 games over five seasons with Halifax and the Acadie-Bathurst Titan.
After returning home, he joined Gander Flyers and played in the senior ranks until the pandemic hit. He was skating with other locals earlier this season until the recent lockdown.
Robin Short is the Telegram's Sports Editor. robin.short@thetelegram.com | Twitter: @TelyRobinShort