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http://www.hockeyinsideout.com/news/ex-hab-spacek-peels-back-layers-of-surreal-season


Des propos durs pour Jacques Martin et Pierre Gauthier. 


In talking with your former teammates here, the guys with whom you stay in touch, what’s the feeling about the hiring of Marc Bergevin as general manager, and will this exorcise the ghost of his predecessor, Pierre Gauthier?
From what I hear, hiring Bergevin is all positive. The organization was in the dark the last couple of years. … It was only Pierre’s way. He never asked anybody else, probably. He set up the strict rules we all had to follow.

What were the most frustrating and most satisfying things about playing under coach Jacques Martin?
I think we played too much of a defensive system, I didn’t like that. I think it was even boring to watch us, to be honest. To be very honest. Come on, at home, we play like this? I think it was boring a little bit. At the end of the night, if you win 2-1, nobody cares. It’s a win. But there weren’t too many games that we win 5-2, 6-4, wide-open games in which you just had fun. There weren’t too many like that.

Many nights, Canadiens fans were crying out for Martin to show some fire-breathing emotion behind the bench. Did you ever see that?
I didn’t mind Jacques. But today you see young coaches trying to change systems, trying to adjust to other teams. We never did that. No 2-1-2 (formation). With the talent we had, we should have been aggressive. We never did that. It was chip and chase. Now everybody’s going after Gomer. Cammy didn’t like it, either. Those guys have to play with the puck.
It was like watching my (9-year-old) kid, firing the puck along the boards and chasing it. We didn’t have strong forwards to run somebody over. We should have played with the puck and made the plays. If we chip it around the goal, do you think Gio’s going to win the battles against Chara?
We’d sit back and wait for a mistake. We never put the pressure on the opponent. It’s sometimes OK to do that on the road. But at home, where you should be playing your own game, it was the worst thing.

Communication seems to have been less than ideal. Compare it to Carolina, having been traded to the Hurricanes?
Well, Jacques didn’t talk to us. He coached more than 1,200 NHL games. At least you have to talk to your players. In Carolina, we’d have a players’ breakfast every day and (head coach) Kirk Muller would sit with us, talk to us. He’d talk to us at pre-game meals. When I got there, Eric Staal was playing really bad, he wanted to get out of there. (Goalie) Cam Ward wasn’t good. Kirk turned those into the two best players on the team, with help of other guys, and that made everyone want to play better.

What are your impressions of P.K. Subban?
I think he’s a great hockey player. But he needs to be coached the right way and I don’t think Jacques Martin was right for him. That’s how I see it.

Randy Cunneyworth, Martin’s interim replacement?
I think Randy was told what to do. We had a general manager running the show. Randy was put in the worst situation ever

A biggest regret here?
Well, maybe this: on every team I played, the coach or GM would talk to you. They wouldn’t wait for the last second. If you played bad, they’d come and talk to you right away. That didn’t happen here.