Canadiens of Old They Are Not

For a team with a tradition of stability and excellence, the Montreal Canadiens are having an unusually turbulent and mediocre season.

Not only did they fire Coach Jacques Demers and General Manager Serge Savard in October, they are scrambling to avoid missing the playoffs for the second successive spring. That hasn’t happened since the 1920-21 and ‘21-22 seasons, which predates their move into the venerable Montreal Forum.

The fanfare over Monday’s Forum farewell has deflected attention from their recent struggles. Once the euphoria created by the hiring of Coach Mario Tremblay and General Manager Rejean Houle faded, the Canadiens fell back in the Eastern Conference playoff pack. They are 7-8-1 since the end of January and have a three-point lead over the Boston Bruins for the final playoff berth.

“We’ve been up and down with all the changes we’ve had over the year, so we’re happy being five games over .500,” center Vincent Damphousse said. “The team is so young, we’re going to have some ups and downs. We make some mistakes, but I think we’re on the right road.”

Houle’s big trade, in which he sent unhappy goaltender Patrick Roy to Colorado for Jocelyn Thibault, Martin Rucinsky and Andrei Kovalenko, is working out well. Thibault has been steady in goal and Rucinsky has career-highs of 27 goals and 61 points, including 38 points in his last 24 games. Also encouraging is the new assertiveness of defenseman Vladimir Malakhov.

“Since the beginning of the season, there have been a lot of changes, and the Patrick Roy situation, but since December and January we can think about playing hockey,” center Pierre Turgeon said. “In the first half of the season, everybody was shaky. We didn’t know how things would turn out. Now we can focus on hockey.”

A strong focus may not be enough to fend off the Bruins.

“We have 10 home games left, which is good,” Tremblay said. “We have to play well defensively the rest of the season. The team that doesn’t play well defensively at this point of the season, they have no chance.”

LEAFING THROUGH THE RUBBLE

Pat Burns, fired as coach last week by the Toronto Maple Leafs, was not to blame for the team’s 3-16-3 slump and its plunge in the Western Conference standings.

General Manager Cliff Fletcher collected too many older, nonproductive players and neglected the Maple Leafs’ defense, which is too creaky to keep up with speedy opponents. Kirk Muller had five goals in 19 games before recording a hat trick Saturday against Calgary, Doug Gilmour is struggling, Dave Andreychuk has two goals in his last 12 games and the power play was five for 49 before scoring three times Saturday. Burns took the fall for Fletcher’s miscalculations, and that’s a shame.

Still, Burns understood the move.

“You can’t keep on trading foot soldiers all the time,” he said. “Sometimes the general has to go.”

He will have his pick of jobs when he wants to return--and he will be back, even though he’s due $850,000 next season for a contract extension the Maple Leafs offered him. He has already been mentioned as a candidate to coach Team Canada in the World Cup tournament, to coach the Vancouver Canucks if they fire Rick Ley and as a late-season replacement for Boston Coach Steve Kasper, which the Bruins deny.

It’s difficult to picture interim Coach Nick Beverley, the former King general manager, rallying the Maple Leafs. The colorless Beverley, who was Toronto’s scouting director, last coached more than 10 years ago with the Kings’ New Haven farm team. Colorado Coach Marc Crawford was mentioned for the permanent job, but he has a year left on his contract and denies wanting out.

PANTING PANTHERS

The Florida Panthers picked a bad time for a season-worst 0-7-1 slump.

Their offense has produced only 12 goals in eight games and they have been shut out twice. Worse, goaltending, which had been their strength, is faltering. They have given up 38 goals during their winless streak and John Vanbiesbrouck was pulled in two of his last five starts. In addition, they have lost Stu Barnes to a knee injury and Scott Mellanby to a broken finger.

All in all, Coach Doug MacLean is putting his master’s degree in psychology to good use.

“I’m just trying in a slight way to put some [pressure] on their backs, because I think I’ll be better for it,” he said. “I hope Pat Burns wasn’t thinking that 22 games ago. But it’s a bad experience, and maybe it makes you better.”

RUMORS DU JOUR

Glen Sather, the Edmonton Oilers’ general manager, expects a flurry of deals before the March 20 trading deadline.

“I went out for two hours [one day last week] and I got 13 messages,” he said. “I think there’s going to be a lot of stuff happening.”

Sather may be among the traders. The Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins have talked about Penguin winger Markus Naslund, with Pittsburgh hoping to get defenseman Bryan Marchment. However, they might settle for Scott Thornton.

In St. Louis, Wayne Gretzky reportedly is urging General Manager-Coach Mike Keenan to get Rick Tocchet from Boston, and the Bruins might bite. If they fall out of playoff contention, they probably will begin a major payroll trimming, with Tocchet among the first to go.

The Blues might also grab Edmonton winger Glenn Anderson. The Oilers and Blues claimed him when he went through waivers after his return from Europe, and the Blues would get first claim if the Oilers waived him. He was held out of Edmonton’s most recent game, last Friday.

SLAP SHOTS

Darryl Sydor has steadied himself since being traded by the Kings to the Dallas Stars. His unfortunate habit of making sudden, costly mistakes led King Coach Larry Robinson to call him “a time bomb,” which Sydor said was hard to take. “I guess that’s the way they try to motivate players,” he said. “I did feel like I was playing under a huge microscope. Every little mistake, and I was waiting for something to happen.” But he holds no grudge. “If I was the bad person there and they had to move me, so be it,” he said.

The Canadiens, Maple Leafs and Calgary Flames lead the pursuit of Islander winger Wendel Clark. . . . A Dallas scout insists the Stars won’t trade defenseman Kevin Hatcher, who has been playing well. . . . New York Ranger Coach Colin Campbell benched center Ray Ferraro last Saturday and cut left wing Adam Graves’ ice time to spare Graves’ sore back. General Manager Neil Smith wants a center, a defenseman and a goalie--and he’s looking at the Kings’ Jari Kurri, Marty McSorley and Kelly Hrudey. However, the Kings want Mattias Norstrom, and the Rangers are reluctant to give up the talented Swedish defenseman.

The season’s most bizarre injury: Devil center Bobby Holik sprained his left ankle while playing table tennis. . . . Winnipeg’s playoff chances were hurt when winger Ed Olczyk, who has 25 goals and 44 points, sprained his knee. He will sit out a month. . . . Calgary’s Gary Roberts, making a strong comeback from neck surgery, has had “stingers,” twinges of pain. They didn’t stop him from punching Toronto’s Mats Sundin on Saturday after taking several nasty hits.

Players moan about ice conditions at the Pond in Anaheim, but the ice was so bad at Boston’s FleetCenter one day last week that the morning skate was canceled. . . . USA Hockey, the sport’s national governing body, will hold its second world hockey summit July 11-13 in Boston. . . . Islander defenseman Dennis Vaske practiced last week for the first time since Nov. 22, when he suffered a concussion on a hit by the Kings’ Eric Lacroix. Concussion-plagued teammates Brett Lindros, who hasn’t played since Nov. 24, and Ken Belanger, who has played one game since Feb. 8, aren’t expected back this season.