Guy Boucher reveals his plan to revive the Canadiens

"The Habs are not in a position to do a rebuild. Nobody wants to hear it but they have too many big contracts that they can't sell, that people won't buy. Even if you bang your head on the wall and hope you can do that, the Habs are not in that position."

- Guy Boucher

He believes the CH has many components to get back on track and that the defence must come first.

"If you don't have goalies, you have nothing. If you don't have goalies, you have nothing. You can have defensemen, you can have forwards, but you have nothing! [...] Right now with Carey Price healthy and Jake Allen, the Habs are among the best in the league. And we're going to give them away? Let's say we don't give them away, we have great goaltenders. On defense, you have Chiarot, Edmundson and Petry who, not being the leader and being behind someone else, will find his means 100 miles an hour. So that means if you sign Chiarot, you're just one defenseman short of a Top-4. And we always say, if you don't have a Top-4, you're dead. Now we'll get rid of Chiarot and fall to two? If one of them gets hurt, you go down to one. A Top-4 with two is a disaster. With three, close the books! You may have the best forwards in the world, but the offense in the NHL starts with the defensemen."

- Guy Boucher

There isn't a huge lack of offense either in his opinion, as long as you can get your hands on the right player.

"So, the Habs have what? Two goalies. Great! They're missing a Top-4 guy, so you're working to get a Top-4 defenseman. And up front what's their biggest problem, whether it's this year or last year, two years ago, three years ago, four years ago? A center. And not a third line center. They need a center up front from Suzuki. It won't be Crosby, it won't be Matthews, but there are good players who are capable of playing against the best opposing players and who are capable of giving some offense and who have more experience than Suzuki and are faster than Dvorak. So when you look at that, you're missing a center and you're missing a defender. Yes, it's not easy to get but imagine if you sign Kris Letang on the free agent market? You're just missing a center all of a sudden. And even if he's not a superstar, every game, with those goalies and defensemen there, you're going to be able to compete while waiting for the Suzuki, Caufield, Poehling, Romanov and others to develop at their own pace."

- Guy Boucher