End of season media availability: Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes

BROSSARD - General manager Kent Hughes and executive vice-president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton addressed the media at the Bell Sports Complex to reflect on the 2022-23 season.

Here are a few highlights from the press conference:
Hughes on the success of Quebec-born players and the role the coaching staff played:
Every player that has the privilege to play in the NHL will give everything he can to keep his spot. The fact that these players played well here, maybe it's a matter of pride when it comes to wearing the Canadiens jersey. It's definitely a team they watched and followed when they were growing up. Another part is also the environment that we're trying to establish here, which allows them to realize their potential. If we're talking about Belzile, Harvey-Pinard or Montembeault, they're still young players who are trying to establish themselves as regulars. I think that Marty and the staff have done a great job making them feel comfortable.

Gorton on the Canadiens' injury situation this past season:
I would say that our first dive was today to start to go through the process with the players and our coaches. In the next few days, we're sitting down with everyone in the organization. It's something that we understand. We led the league in man games lost last year and I think we broke the record this year, so we're pretty mindful of it and we'll spend a lot of time trying to figure out where we've got to get better. It's definitely something that's not lost on us.
Hughes on being transparent with the public regarding injuries:
There's a balance between what the public wants to know and what we need to keep private to protect the player. First, when you're talking about a player's health, it's their right to keep certain details private, even if you might see a player walking with a boot, for example. If he doesn't want that information divulged to the public, that's his right.
Second, we don't have all the information right away. If we say that Arber Xhekaj has a shoulder injury and it ends up getting out there and we're playing two nights later, do we want a team to take advantage of the situation?
We also want to protect ourselves with respect to the trade deadline. Take Sean Monahan, for example. He had a lot of injuries in the past. Maybe he wanted to keep that information private so he could communicate directly with other teams via his agent if he doesn't end up signing with Montreal this summer.
I'd also like to talk to other teams interested in acquiring him about the nature of his injuries.

Hughes on the work accomplished by head coach Martin St-Louis:
We've been saying pretty consistently that we're proud of the work that he's done. I'm not surprised. When we introduced him, I said he had an interim tag, but the intent was not for him to be an interim because he just has so many qualities as a hockey person, but also as a man, as a person, and as a human being that I think are really important in this day and age to be a good coach. Without exception, the players rave about him, but they rave about the group as a whole, the coaching staff and how they've approached them and how they've treated them and what they've taught them. It's a very important piece of the process when you're trying to do what we're trying to do here.
Gorton on St-Louis' achievements behind the bench thus far:
The thing about Marty is that unlike anybody else, he is the one that wanted to come without a contract as an interim. I don't think there's a lot of people that would do that, put themselves out there like that, so I think it underlines exactly what we're talking about with Marty and how committed he is and dedicated, and how much he believes in himself. Those things stick out right away when you are around him. Kent talked about him being a good person. This guy's a special guy, and we all know that. We're lucky to have him and we felt that when we hired him. Did we know it was going to work like this right away? No, but you had a feeling that everything the guy does, he does well and succeeds. That's what he does. He's pretty successful at everything he does. We couldn't be happier with Marty.

Gorton on trusting the process and building the team the right way:
I don't like to put timetables on something, right? We're trying to build this thing the right way. I would say to you that if we just take shortcuts, if we did a few things just to be a little better, just to make it into the playoffs, I don't think that's going about it the right way. I think building, developing and letting it happen a little bit organically and through our process is the way to go. I believe in that and we all believe in that. There's not a blueprint that works the same for everybody, the timelines change. Take Kirby Dach, for instance. We acquired a player with a lot of talent, we hoped that he would be a good player and I think he's proved that he's a very capable NHL player with huge upside. Those are the kind of deals we want to move forward trying to make to move this thing along and to build a team that's going to sustain itself for a long time. A team that can win and compete to win all the time. That's what we're trying to do.
I feel very confident in our coaching staff and our players. We're going in the right direction and I'm certainly appreciative of our fans and how supportive they've been since I've been here, I could tell you that.
Hughes on the upcoming draft:
We have leverage to make some deals and do those kinds of things, I think we have that luxury now. Certainly, I would expect that we will be active at the draft, trying to push it along as much as we can. We'll see what happens in the lottery. We'll all cross our fingers and hope we can get as high as we can here, but short of that, I think we're in a pretty good spot. Our scouts are really confident that there are good players available to us and Kent and I are going to go over to Switzerland to see some of them, so we're excited for that.