1996 move to the Molson Centre retrospective

Hi all, long time habs fan but semi new to reddit so I apologize if this topic has already been discussed (I searched but I didn't find anything).

Something that has bugged me for a long time was the 1996 move from the forum to the new Molson centre with about a month to go in the season. I've been a habs fan since 1987 and as long as I remember, the Habs have always been a good home team at the Forum, whether it is the ghost or other factors, whenever they've played at the forum I loved our chances. Even in that terrible 1995 lockout season where we only won 3 road games, our home record was incredible for the most part.

Which makes me wonder, why on earth did they decide to move to the bell centre in March of 1996 and if the outcomes of that year would have been a bit different? In 1996 we had a disastrous start but turned things around and was playing great hockey after that 0-5 start and was up 2-0 against the Rangers on the road before returning to Montreal. Would things have been different and maybe we could have gone on a longer run had we stayed at the forum??

This had always bugged me, what is your thoughts?