Canadiens fans have growing confidence in management

Every year, The Athletic asks thousands of field hockey fans to rate the management of NHL teams according to specific criteria.

Among these criteria, the organization’s vision, its work during the free agent period and club trades are rated. What about the Canadiens? Do fans have confidence in management? Where does it rank among the 32 teams on the Bettman circuit?

Last year, Kent Hughes’ management ranked 16th. This year, it ranks 14th.

What’s noticeable is that the partisan base is more confident than the general public. Both groups of people came to the same conclusion in the ” draft and develop” category, but in all the others, the proud partisans are much more optimistic.

I’ll let you take a look at the chart for yourselves.

Overall, fans gave management a B+ and the general public a C+.

As can be seen at the bottom of the photo above, fan confidence has increased by 59% compared to last year, which is a pretty good number, considering picks in recent drafts that weren’t necessarily unanimous. Only 8% have less confidence in management than last year.

Some fans didn’t like the selection of Juraj Slafkovsky at No. 1 in the 2022 auction.

And David Reinbacher at No. 5 in the following auction: not everyone liked that selection, either.

But with Kent Hughes’ trades and personnel moves in general, he deserves his B+ grade, offered by fans who follow the team on a daily basis. He has to build around Marc Bergevin’s bad contracts, and so far, he’s done extremely well.

As for the teams with the most fan confidence, the Devils come out on top. In fact, both the general (non-partisan) public and the fans rate them highly (A+). Devils management has thus moved from 11th place in 2022 to the top of the podium in 2023. The Hurricanes (A+) and Lightning (A-) complete the podium.

This ranking has been compiled for the eighth year running, and this year more than 11,000 responses were compiled. And more than 300 fans rated the 32 NHL teams. Well done to them.

Breaking news

– Montreal CF loses to New York City FC.

Final score.

Final score.#CFMTL pic.twitter.com/CnmnUMH5bE

– CF Montréal (@cfmontreal) August 31, 2023

– Tomorrow is a celebration of a legend.

pic.twitter.com/WUNuAPEVuV

– Dave Stubbs 🇨🇦 (@Dave_Stubbs) August 31, 2023

– Finally.

– Wow.

92,003 in attendance.@HuskerVB breaks the world record for the largest crowd ever at a women’s sporting event 👏 @espnW | #ThatsaW pic.twitter.com/ChyhUCvaAZ

– ESPN (@espn) August 31, 2023

– Part 2 comes at a good time.