Still a month away from the 2024 NHL entry draft, news items have been few and far between for the Montreal Canadiens. But while the big club is focused on what they’ll be doing with their 12 picks in late June, there was still the matter of determining the coach for their AHL affiliate next season. They’ve done that, extending the incumbent Jean-François Houle with a multi-year contract.
After six years as an assistant coach with the Bakersfield Condors, Houle took over the Laval Rocket bench for the 2021-22 season. Since that time, he has a record of 105-86-25, making it all the way to the third round of the playoffs in his first season. Playoff success has been hard to find since then – a qualifying round loss in 2022-23 and an outright miss this past season – but a very young group last year in Laval gave hope for better things to come.
Perhaps more importantly, numerous players who have been called up to the big club during Houle’s tenure have fared well with the Habs. Joel Armia returned to the Habs looking like a completely different player after his stint there early in the season. This likely factored into the decision to re-sign him, as the organization feels that he’s doing well in getting young players ready to make the jump to the top league in the world.
Assistant coach Martin Laperrière, goaltending coach Marco Marciano and video coach Charles Juneau have also agreed to multi-year extensions. They will need to hire one more assistant to replace Kelly Buchberger, who joined a team in the Alberta junior league.
