The Montreal Canadiens have made a change amid a shaky season in net.
President of hockey operations Jeff Gorton announced Wednesday that the NHL club has fired goalie coach Eric Raymond.
Raymond had held the position since the 2021-22 season. Marco Marciano, who served as goalie coach of the American Hockey League’s Laval Rocket, will take over Raymond’s duties on an interim basis until the end of the season.
“This is an unfortunate part of the business. Eric’s done a lot of good things for us. We’ve had some success with the goalies under Eric, so this is not a one-person reflection,” Gorton told reporters. “This is just an organizational decision that we made to have a new voice and move forward like that.
“Marco has history with our goalies and some success, so we just felt like at this time it was the right move.”
Incumbent Sam Montembeault — named to Canada’s 4 Nations Face-Off roster last year — has a .868 save percentage and 3.46 goals-against average one season after posting a .902 save percentage and 2.80 GAA. He worked with Marciano on a conditioning loan with the Rocket in December.
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“Marco’s an intelligent guy. Works hard. He’s got a good rapport with his goalies. Everybody that we know speaks highly of him,” Gorton said. “We’ve had interest from around the league for Marco, so we’ve sort of held him back.
“We just felt like this was his time.”
Rookie goalie Jakub Dobes has fallen to a .890 save percentage and 2.96 GAA after being named the NHL’s third star of the month in October.
The goaltending troubles pushed the Canadiens in December to recall 21-year-old Jacob Fowler from Laval earlier than anticipated in his development.
Fowler posted a .902 save percentage and 2.62 GAA in 10 NHL starts, but the Canadiens sent him back to the Rocket on Jan. 16 to end a three-goalie rotation.
“With Fowler, every decision we make with him is (to) develop in the right way,” Gorton said. “We spend a lot of time thinking about what’s next for him and getting him enough starts, getting him enough practices.”
Montreal (29-17-7) holds the Eastern Conference’s first wild-card spot despite sitting 25th in team save percentage this season at .879.
Gorton nevertheless said he’s comfortable with the Canadiens’ situation in net moving forward.
“We believe in our goalies and we’re very comfortable,” he said. “The easiest thing to do is blame the goalies for this. It’s not just the goalies, any time something like this happens it’s on all of us, so we will all take that, we’ll all take the responsibility.”
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