It has been a tough season for the Habs on many fronts and another casualty has occurred from it as the team announced Wednesday that Dominique Ducharme has been fired as head coach.

After a long rest, the Habs looked exactly like they did before the All-Star break. They got off to a slow start and never recovered on Tuesday night, falling 7-1 to New Jersey.

Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes have spent the last little bit assessing what they have and making their plans for reshaping their roster. The first step will be to peddle impending UFAs for picks and prospects but what else could they do?

After a rough first quarter of the season, the second wasn’t any better for the Habs. Nevertheless, there are still some decent grades in our report cards, beginning as always with the goaltenders and defencemen.

Who were the top performers for the Habs in January? Make your selections for Montreal’s three stars of the month.

Goaltending is an area that can often go underappreciated. It can be taken for granted sometimes and the end result is that when a team is missing both netminders, things can go sideways in a hurry. That’s exactly what happened with the Habs last week.

Samuel Montembeault had a terrible first period and his teammates tried hard to bounce back but simply weren’t able to as they fell 6-3 to Columbus on Sunday night.

Montreal was able to hold Edmonton to well below their season average in shots on goal on Saturday night but it didn’t matter much as some defensive breakdowns proved costly with the Oilers skating away with a 7-2 win.

The Habs outworked the young Ducks on Thursday night but got subpar netminding for the first half of the game and some questionable decision-making from the bench in the final moments that ultimately sealed their fate in a 5-4 loss.

With Sami Niku having played just four times in basically the last two months and the fact he has dropped to no better than eighth on the depth chart, the Habs placed him on waivers on Wednesday for the purpose of sending him to Laval.