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Dominique Ducharme: Jeff Petry’s comments hurt him

When Dominique Ducharme left the Canadiens, he kept a low profile for a while. When he came back, we sensed that certain aspects had bothered him, but he didn’t necessarily talk about them too much.

He wanted to move on – and he did, via his new position as assistant coach with the Vegas Golden Knights.

But the fact remains that certain aspects were not to his liking. That’s to be expected when a coach makes it to the Stanley Cup Final, but loses his job in less than a year.

It was all pretty special.

One of the things he’s got to work on a bit is the Jeff Petry issue. The defenseman had criticized the lack of structure on the ice when things were going badly with the club, a few months before the two men left Montreal.

Ducharme, recently questioned on the subject of the defenseman (in the run-up to his second departure from Montreal this summer) on the radio, showed class by saying nothing.

But does that mean it doesn’t work on him? No.

In fact, in a more informal setting, Ducharme has opened up. And as you can sense from Tony Marinaro’s podcast, you can really see that the defenseman didn’t make his coach happy, and that his coach was affected by Petry’s comments publicly.

Ducharme made a point of settling the matter by talking to his defender quickly, so as not to drag the matter out. After all, it had hurt his feelings – and understandably so.

However, the man who is happy to have his chance elsewhere in the NHL sensed that it wasn’t necessarily personal, as the player later said that everyone had to stand up.

But hey. We know that Ducharme was still in the midst of a difficult season (which made him doubt a return to the NHL at some point in 2022-2023) and seeing Petry’s comments came at a bad time, let’s say.

Still, Ducharme refuses to throw his former player under the bus, pointing out that one of the reasons for his difficult season was that his family had returned to Michigan because of the pandemic.

Ducharme thinks Petry knows it hurt.

Petry, who was playing as badly as his team, wanted things to change, but he didn’t take it the right way. And although he doesn’t want to say it too loudly, Ducharme didn’t find it funny.


In Brief

– News from Mark Stone.

– It’s the mentality.

– Logical.

– Not ideal, indeed.

– Too bad.

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