Éric Raymond’s dismissal: Samuel Montembeault was in shock

Charles-Alexis Brisebois
Éric Raymond’s dismissal: Samuel Montembeault was in shock
Credit: Patrick Guillet / X

Yesterday morning, the Canadiens announced a change in goalie coaching, as you know.

Éric Raymond, who arrived under Dominique Ducharme, has been replaced by Marco Marciano, who was his counterpart in Laval. That's how the habs will finish the season.

And clearly, it got people talking around town.

Marciano has the interim title and will have to prove himself. But let's just say we feel it would take a catastrophe for the new goalie coach not to inherit the full-time position in a few months.

The Canadiens want it to work, at least.

The Habs' goal was not only to take the lead in connection with a personnel move that was coming (the Habs did not plan to bring back Raymond, who was not HuGo's man, and the club did not want to lose Marciano, who was in demand), but…

But let's not hide the fact that the goal was also to shake up the existing goalies.

Instead of making a trade, the Canadiens sent two shockwaves this season to Jakub Dobes and Samuel Montembeault: the recall of Jacob Fowler in December and the dismissal of Éric Raymond yesterday.

Will it work as well as it did for the Islanders, who managed to revive Ilya Sorokin since the change of goalie coach in New York? Only time will tell.

But what we do know, in any case, is that Samuel Montembeault was shocked to learn that his goalie coach, who had been there since his arrival with the Canadiens via waivers in 2021, had lost his job.

Renaud Lavoie talked about it this morning on BPM Sports.

Will all this be enough to revive the goalies, which is undoubtedly the #1 problem for the Canadiens in this important 2025-2026 season?

Who knows? We'll see soon enough.

Inevitably, when news like this breaks, it brings a lot of thoughts to mind. The impact of this news is significant.

What else can we take away from this?

1. Marco Marciano is a very good coach on a technical level and knows the Canadiens' two goalies very well. At that level, that can really help.

That's why he's there.

But here's what we don't know and what we're going to find out: how good will the new guy be at helping the guys mentally? He helped his players mentally in the AHL… but thebig show isanother story.

From what we know, his energy is contagious. So that could help change things a bit… and in my opinion, it's going to work.

2. Would you be surprised to see the Habs catch up this summer by creating a goaltending department, like the Florida Panthers have?

Would Carey Price, without being physically in Montreal asa coach, want a position in such a department? I ask because his name has been circulating since yesterday, even though I doubt he would want to take on such a challenge.

We're bringing up this idea (the department) because the Habs not only have four goalies (Samuel Montembeault, Jakub Dobes, Jacob Fowler, and Kaapo Kahkonen… for now) that they can call up to the NHL, but they also have a lot of promising prospects.

Who are they?

  • Alexis Cournoyer
  • Arseni Radkov
  • Yevgeni Volokhin
  • Mikus Vecvanags
  • Quentin Miller
  • Emmett Croteau

Drafting goalies often is a good strategy, in fact. And creating a department to support them could allow them to flourish even more.

In my opinion, the habs have already thought of this.

3. Of course, we're still wondering who will be the next goalie coach for the Laval Rocket. The Canadiens have an important decision to make since Jacob Fowler has lost his coach as well.

Anthony Marcotte and Vincent Demuy have connections with the Laval Rocket, so I take the names they mention on Twitter seriously.

4. Unbeknownst to most, news like this takes up all the space. That leaves less room for a story like Patrik Laine's, which has been on everyone's lips for the past few days.

The player himself, his agent, and the habs must be happy about that. Working behind the scenes means fewer distractions.

5. I can't wait to see how Marciano will work with Martin St-Louis. I don't see why it wouldn't work, but it's still a question worth asking since the two men don't know each other very well.

Remember that yesterday, Martin St-Louis seemed affected by the dismissal of his assistant.


Overtime

– Interesting.

– Bringing in Martin St-Louis as interim coach gave Cole Caufield a new lease on life.

– The Mammoth, a club to watch on the market.

– Devon “Rochester resident” Levi. I like that.

– We need to improve our powerplay.

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