Michel Therrien blames P.K. Subban for costing Canadiens game

Montreal Canadiens coach Michel Therrien benched defenseman P.K. Subban on Wednesday for trying to make the type of play that makes him such a dangerous player.

At this point it is simply a matter of when, and not if, Michel Therrien is going to be fired by Montreal Canadiens.

Make no mistake, it is going to happen. Whether it happens on Thursday, later this month, after this nightmare of a season in Montreal ends, or at some point next season, it is a move that is inevitable given the way things have completely fallen apart for a team that started the season with so much promise and no longer has Carey Price to mask its flaws. 

The Canadiens' historic free-fall down the Eastern Conference standings continued on Wednesday night with a 3-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche, and even though it might not be their worst loss of the season (it probably wasn't even their worst loss this week), it should be remembered as the night Therrien completely lost his way as coach of the Canadiens and pretty much punted on his team's chance the season. What was left of them, anyway.

It was during this game that he refused to put P.K. Subban, his best player and leading scorer, on the ice late in a one-goal game.

All so he could send a message and punish his best player for doing nothing more than trying to win the game. And then he called him out after the game and pretty much put all of the blame for the loss on him. What other explanation is there for that kind of decision? It's not strategic. There is no way one can argue that Montreal had a better chance to tie the game with Subban sitting on the bench. 

Here is the situation: With three minutes to play in a tie game, Subban had the puck on his stick in the offensive zone and attempted to make a play. In doing so, he lost an edge on his skate and fell to the ice leading to what would be the eventual game-winning goal for the Avalanche.

Here is a look at the play. 

This ain't the kind of tic-tac-toe you used to play in elementary school.https://t.co/mlvvOP3lv0

— NHL (@NHL) February 18, 2016

Subban never saw the ice again.

After the game Therrien pretty much put the entire game on that one play.

"An individual mistake cost us the game late in the game," said Therrien. 

He did not stop there, later adding. "As a coach, I thought he could have made a better decision at the blue line and put the puck behind, and he put himself in a tough position."

And then: "We play as a team, and unfortunately at the end of the game, when we don't play as a team we could be in trouble, and this is what happens."

What is crazy about this is even after the turnover the Canadiens were still in pretty decent position to defend the Avalanche rush up the ice, and every man seemed to be accounted for as the Avalanche entered the zone ... right up until Matt Duchene slowed up, started a tic-tac-toe passing play, and Iginla somehow found himself wide open in front of the net as every other Non-Subban Canadien on the ice ended up getting lost. 

You don't have to like the play Subban tried to make, or the result. And if you want to argue that he could have made a "safer" play in that situation, that is fine, because he probably could have made a safer play (more on this in a second). 

But for a team that needs a late goal to tie the game, and needs points in the standings to keep whatever slim playoff hopes it might have alive, to respond to it by not putting its best player and leading scorer on the ice is just complete madness. 

They basically benched P.K. Subban ... for being P.K. Subban.

When the game is on the line, teams need their best players to make the type of plays that seperate them from everybody else in the league. The reason the Canadiens pay Subban $9 million a year is because he is the type of impact player that can take over a game and make plays that nobody else can make. That type of ability will always carry some risk, because sometimes it's not going to work the way you want it to.

It doesn't mean a coach should bench them -- with the game and the season on the line! -- when it doesn't work. 

This is a symptom of a much larger problem in the NHL now -- a symptom that has played a significant role in the decline in scoring and what can be, at times, an increasingly dull product  -- where coaching and systems become bigger than the talent on the ice and rob players of their ability to create plays.

Many coaches want every player to play the exact same way and make the exact same safe plays. When players like Subban (Or Erik Karlsson) try to use their game-changing ability and it doesn't work, they get villified for it. For being selfish, not making safe plays, or being too reckless. But when a player with less skill that doesn't have that ability simply gets beat one-on-one because they lack the skill to try and create a play on their own, nobody gives it a second thought. 

In the end, Therrien can be a good coach for the right kind of team, usually one that doesn't have a lot of talent and lacks any kind of direction on and off the ice. That is why he was so successful replacing Ed Olczyk in Pittsburgh a decade ago and cleaning up the mess that team had become. But it is a style that doesn't have a very long shelf life, and we saw it in Pittsburgh. As the team started to become a contender and assemble a roster of All-Stars his play-it-safe, grind-it-out style of hockey was holding everything back, and in recent years we have started to see that play out in Montreal. 

This season isn't all on the coach, but it is definitely starting to look as if this team has already hit is peak under Therrien's watch. And it's because of decisions like the one made at the end of Wednesday's game. 

Montreal Canadiens coach Michel Therrien benched P.K. Subban on Wednesday night. (USATSI)