Your wish is their command, Gauthier is out. (Getty Images)

It has been a awfully disappointing season in Montreal. First the head coach Jacques Martin paid for it with his job. Now general manager Pierre Gauthier has paid the same price, being relieved of his duties by the Canadiens on Thursday.

Senior advisor Bob Gainey is also no longer with the franchise, stepping down with Gauthier's firing.

This isn't going to come as a shock to many people at all. There have long been rumors about the next GM in Montreal even though Gauthier was still in the seat.

A name that has been thrown around a lot in said talks has been none other than Pierre McGuire, the analyst for NBC who everybody just loves to death (you can't see it, but there was sarcasm font there). Another one you might hear will be none other than Patrick Roy. I'm not sure how much of a look those two candidates will get, but this blog probably won't be the last you hear of them.

The team said that the GM search is beginning immediately. You have to think that they already have a relatively short list in mind for the position. One of the qualifications we know is that said candidate must be bilingual. After this year's coaching controversy surrounding Randy Cunneyworth, that's almost a given. It was pretty much a given before that, honestly.

Owner Geoff Molson more or less said as much on Thursday, but added, and I'm paraphrasing here, that for the right candidate, that requirement would be disregarded. The preference is to get somebody who speaks French, but if you have the next coming of Ken Holland interviewing and doesn't even know what bonjour means, they'd think twice about that whole French angle.

Gauthier was only on the job for two seasons in Montreal, a relatively short leash for a general manager. But when the team nosedives to having the worst record in the Eastern Conference with five games to play in the season, it's not exactly inspiring a lot of hope.

Courtesy of the CBC, here's a timeline of Gauthier's tenure in Montreal. Draw your own conclusions.

Gauthier deserves a little credit for bringing in Erik Cole this offseason, that was an excellent signing. That's probably where the credit ends. In the end, Gauthier is falling on the sword for what has been a terrible season in Montreal, and those don't go unpunished, not there.

The dismantling of the organizational structure started much earlier this season when the Canadiens removed assistant coach Perry Pearn as sort of a sacrificial lamb for the poor start. Next it was Martin. Now Gauthier couldn't withstand it all.

Whomever the next general manager is, the first priority will be to figure out the head coach situation. The smart money would be on Cunneyworth not returning in that capacity. Aside from the flap his interim hiring created because he's not a Francophone, the team hasn't exactly lit the world on fire with him coaching either.

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