The first encouraging thing about this is that not everyone in the known world is afraid of the Montreal media and the attention from the fans. The second encouraging thing is that Larry knows a thing or two about defence and has made some pretty average players into league-wide exemplars of the back end.
As far as I’m aware, Larry Robinson does not really meet the francophone criterion set forth by team president Pierre Boivin, though he probably gets by in French. But if there’s anyone who can skirt that rule it will be a Canadiens hall-of-famer. We should take advantage of that possibility while we can, because pretty soon the youngest hall-of-famer will be in retirement.
The downside of Larry Robinson is his record as a head coach. Apart from his consecutive Stanley Cup finals with NJ when blessed with Niedermayer and Brodeur in their primes, as well as a then healthy Scott Stevens; Larry hasn’t been that impressive. He also withdrew from coaching the Devils because the pressure was getting to him – you heard right, the Devils. He seems to thrive as an assistant coach, however. And, I think we all hoped he might fit into that role here too.
If you think about that scenario, you could almost have Larry coaching the team and token other guy as the face for the media, but who essentially performs the role of assistant in decision making and coaching capacities. I think something like that could really work.
The fact that it’s even a possibility is very encouraging indeed.
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