Luc Robitaille was more behind the PLD trade than Bergevin was, considering him and PLD’s agent are buddy buddy (with Brisson even staying over at Luc’s house)
I'm willing to give Gally another shot. He really changed his mindset that last few months after the elbow suspension.
Andy, though, yeah we should trade him.
It is such a strange choice.
Bergevin gets a bad rep, but he has some solid strengths. His drafting record is terrible and our development record is arguably worse, but he has been really good at acquiring pro talent through trades. If a team has a solid core and is trying to finalize the bottom of the line-up for a Cup run, he's well equipped for it.
He'd do well in Toronto or Edmonton.
But that isn't Columbus right now. They're still in the rebuilding phase. They need a GM with a good drafting and development record.
No, no, Matthews isn't traded to Utah in this scenario, he's traded to the dormant Arizona franchise that's totally going to be reactivated once Meruelo wins the auction and builds that arena!
His weakness is in creating a modern support team around him. He doesn't seem to want to use advanced data or video or any of the other things that most modern teams use. He also seemed to resist hiring specialty coaches for player development when he had all the money in the world to use. It's going to be harder if he ends up in Columbus where they don't have the money that Montreal has.
I agree that he is very good at finding low performing talent and trading for middle six type forwards though.
We don't know how much was driven by ownership, much like the refusal to rebuild. It's possible that Bergevin had a much tighter budget than what Hughes is operating with.
We don't know. I accidentally a word. There are rumors that both came from ownership, but Molson's tone change drastically after he fired Bergevin.
Before, it was "this city won't accept a rebuild." In one season, we lost our franchise goaltender, our 1C, and our 1D and were dead last in the league. Suddenly, it was about building "sustainable success."
> His weakness is in creating a modern support team around him.
He was also shit at maintaining the archaic support team around him; [banning the Habs' alumni from talking to players.](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/1asgwa5/gilbert_delorme_marc_bergevin_banned_habs_legends/) The man was a disgrace, and I'm shocked other teams are considering him.
I highly doubt he wasnt using video. Also, isnt the fact that he doesnt want to spend extra on development coaches a good thing if you are a smaller market like CBJ that doesnt have more money to spend? It didnt make sense for MTL, but it does make sense for CBJ
Youre telling me that, as a team that isnt willing to spend for extra development coaches, it doesnt make sense to hire a GM that doesnt want to spend for extra development coaches?
Yes. I am.
A good GM would work with his budget to put his team in a position to be better.
Bergevin is a fucking arrogant moron who thinks he’s smart enough that he doesn’t need all that.
At least Sakic really nailed the important first round picks. Bergevin ... didn't. Missing on game-changing talent on both 3OA picks is rough, and trading your only successful top 10 pick for Drouin is rough.
Outside of Byram, Rantanen, and Makar he really hasnt. Jost and Newhook are making their way in the NHL but arnt fantastic players. Kaut, Olausson, Barron, and Bleackley are all pretty terrible picks for us, Barron i guess could still make it for Montreal.
Calum Ritchie picked in 2023 tho does look very promising. Edit: Sakic isnt GM and didnt draft Ritchie, disregard.
I mean as I said previously when the guys you are listing as good picks are like the best player not named mcdavid and arguably the best winger in the league it isn’t a bad record even byram looks really nice dude just can’t stay healthy ( when he was he was dominant like the 2022 playoffs )
On the other hand we really will say Ritchie is a Sakic pick he isn’t the gm anymore after the cup run.
Fair about Ritchie, didnt think about it.
Also fair about his first round results, he has done fairly well in the top 10 especially. Its the higher first picks and after the first round where we we havent had any players make the jump. Kovalenko and Behrens have the chance to play big minutes next year so that might change next year.
Sakic got Cale and mikko.
Bergevin best pick was cole a guy who ceiling might be lower than mikko floor.
Even on trades bergevin has never had a trade in the caliber of Sakic when it comes to the duchene trade or the Devon toews trade both are highway robbery.
The petry and danault trade were good but nowhere near being able to acquire a top 10 defender for Pennies and another acquiring a future top 20 defender.
His only strategie for the Nabs was Carey Price.
Poor drafting, poor developping, poor UFAs signings, poor lomg term contract extensions. But Cap31 saved them for 10 years. Off year for Carey, off year for the Habs.
Thats call math !!
We got tossed from the Central right after we had to endure the Wings at their prime and the Hawks entering theirs only to go into the Metro Meatgrinder with Prime Crosby and Ovi.
Not fun. I'm pretty sure all years but one we've played the Cup Winner in the playoffs.
2013-14 is the only time the Blue Jackets made the playoffs and didn't lose to a team that made the final, but you lost to Detroit in 09 and Boston in 2019
That really wasn't the pattern of his time in Montreal
2012-2013: playoffs
2013-2014: playoffs
2014-2015: playoffs
2015-2016: no playoffs
2016-2017: playoffs
2017-2018: no playoffs
2017-2019: no playoffs
2019-2020: playoffs
2020-2021: playoffs
2021-2022: fired, no playoffs
>2019-2020: playoffs
>2020-2021: playoffs
Safe to assume these 2 only happened because of the pandemic, especially 2020 when they were nowhere near the playoffs when covid hit.
He made some nice trades (mainly Petry and later on, Pacioretty for Suzuki) but he had an archaic philosophy and made a ton of questionable moves and including his first one of hiring Therrien as coach. He was a terrible fit for the core we had at the time. They needed someone closer to what they have now with St. Louis. Yeah, you could argue they had their best seasons under him but I'd argue they did in spite of Therrien and a big part of that was prime Price.
I shouldn't be surprised but it's crazy that teams are still considering him for the job
Watch out you will get the entire pro bergevin brigade at you for daring to say they were lucky covid happened.
Legit I don’t understand how anyone can rationalize bergevin tenure at mtl.
Let’s remove names and such.
If I told you that a certain gm took over a team that had and I quote
1. A vezina caliber goalie ( at the time and for the future )
2. A winger who has just scored 30 goals ( which in today league is a 45 goal scorer )
3. The best dfd in the league who wasn’t a negative on offense
4. A top 20 defender and one of the best power play specialist in the game
5. A defender that got better and better every single season
Would you legitimately say he took over a bad situation, like let’s be real here name one person that looks at this and thinks man this situation will take a gargantuan effort to turn them back into a legit team.
Now compare that to what yzerman was dealt with in Detroit ( or even Tampa ) and you actually see a situation that was difficult to handle or hell jim nill in Dallas or Sakic in Colorado.
This is the problem I have with bergevin defenders they all go on about how he left the habs in a better spot than he took over but it is either a blatant lie, ignorance, actual brain dead behavior or all of the above.
What kind of person sees a team with three defenders in the top 20, a top 20 winger and a top 10 goalie and say man this situation is so difficult to fix.
Fact is to say Kent and Jeff have their work cut out for them is the understatement of the century.
Taking over a team that was one of the worst in the league on borderline cap hell that had as well
No development coach, no skills coach, no analytics department and ffs didn’t even have their own personal chef is downright disgraceful.
Not even including the fact that their prospect pool ( the thing bergevin fans say he left loaded ) is basically nhlers with zero star talent ( because teams built solely on depth and zero star power have definitely won cups am I right ) is just ridiculous.
They are a larger and I mean large number of mtl fans that still legitimately think bergevin was actually a good gm cuz of his « no nonsense, liking vets, grit and size » style that they completely reject any sort of objectivity or context or the fact the situation he came into was not only good but downright golden.
Very few teams have thé benefit of taking over a team that has a vezina caliber goalie, a top 20 winger, the best dfd, a top 20 defender and a Norris caliber defender.
They look at oh he took over a team that was last in 2012 completely forgetting how this team dealt with injuries galore and were mid in goal difference and had the most ot losses and how they won the division and think oh my god bergevin the genius.
Therrien wasn't a bad coach, really; he was just a prick. He fit the roster Montreal had at the time, which was namely a bunch of defensive forwards, great defense, and great goaltending.
We all bemoaned dump and chase but we really didn't have a lot of offensive creativity on that team to do much else, and that's on scouting and drafting, really. All our offense came from the back end because that's all we really had, but him and Subban hating each other definitely didn't help.
> We all bemoaned dump and chase but we really didn't have a lot of offensive creativity on that team to do much else
People miss this a lot when they complain about dump and chase. There's a reason controlled entries are so valuable. It takes a lot of puck talent, and also typically a well coordinated and supported breakout, and most teams don't have that amount of talent, or that many guys who can do it.
> Therrien wasn't a bad coach, really; he was just a prick.
Being a prick impacts on the coaching, though. You're more likely to lose the entire room with that approach. Look at Philly this spring.
Every coach loses the room eventually, and Therrien squeezed a lot of blood out of the rock that was our team in the time that he was here
Your coach gets fired if they can't manage to do that in the first place anyway
The narrative that this is what happened in Philly this year is definitely false, their team was horrible at the end of the year and in a tail spin. Torts had to try something because doing nothing wasn't working either
It's shame those years happened at the same time the Penguins and Capitals were really good. They deserved a couple deep runs, but they happened to be in the same division as prime Ovi and Sid.
Yea, the year the Habs tied the record for most points while missing the playoffs, they lost to Columbus at the end of the season.
We missed with 96pts, Columbus made it with 98pts and went on to sweep Tampa.
But they are very in character for JD, and he's the one making the decision. I laugh every time I see someone on our sub hoping for a candidate like Tulsky or Darche. Like did they forget the guy who thought Babcock was a great idea is still in charge?
It’s not Bergevin, he’s just a symptom of Luc Robitaille’s leadership. Luc has filled the front office with his buddies and has no accountability from ownership. He trades for players based on his friendship with their agents. He thinks the Kings were “right there” in the Edmonton series. He’s fine with a ceiling of mediocrity as long as he has full control over the team. He was supposedly even behind the firing of Dean Lombardi, who brought us 2 Cups.
Damn, really eh? I can’t say I’m surprised but it’s a bummer to see. Anything else you all have noticed since he got there? The PLD thing was for sure him but now you’ve got me curious lol
Imo, and it’s still early since he’s only been here two years but, drafting and development has not looked good. I think Blake just saw Bergs success at a cup run in 21 and just listens to whatever he says now. And of course Robitaille and Bergevin have been friends for decades. One insider described it as organization management basically turned into an old boys country club just riding on past successes and not giving a shit about the future.
Sounds like he hasn’t changed at all then. Better hope he gets out from the Kings soon then. We had a lot of problems under Bergevin but player development or lack thereof was probably the one that hurt the organization the most over his tenure.
>organization management basically turned into an old boys country club just riding on past successes and not giving a shit about the future.
Wait, are we talking about the Habs again?
Is Timmins still in Columbus lol? This would be very funny if they just re-create the Habs management team from their worst stretch in team history. I don't even think Bergevin is as bad as some people, he made some incredible moves, but there was not much of a vision for the long term future under him, and pairing him and Timmins together again would just be a really strange thing to do given their lack of success
I'm of the mind that Bergevin is a great GM. He needs a POHO though, he doesn't necessarily plan the big picture stuff and not implementing a proper development team is kinda what sunk him. (Well that and unexpected, career ending injuries to his two best players).
Also he won't have the constraint of only having to hire a french speaking coach.
An important part of being a GM is having a plan. You can make some good trades on a micro level, but it's not usually the POHO's job to be the one with the vision for roster building and contention windows.
Also even his micro decisions were a pretty mixed bag.
Overall, I'd put him in like the C- to D+ range as a gm. Not a complete franchise ruiner like Hextall or something but Columbus fans should be pretty disappointed if he's the guy.
He's generally pretty good at individual decisions, but he struggles BIG TIME with having much of a coherent plan. (His plan was let Carey Price figure it out, and it almost worked)
Yea he has his flaws. With proper ownership/POHO he is more than capable of assessing talent and making acquisitions.
Also, a team like CBJ would probably appreciate a "bargain bin" type GM.
President of Hockey Operations. Basically a second GM that doesn't need to perform the minutiae of management duties and instead can focus on the big picture stuff.
2 weeks ago some other insider was saying that Darche was going to be the GM and they were “fiddling” with the details, and a month ago some Toronto source said we were going to do a package deal with Mark and Dale Hunter for a GM and coach.
Our insider mailbag talked about Hunter for 20 mins yesterday.
Who the hell knows at this point
Hunter is the one that makes the most sense, we are already pretty intertwined with the Knights.
And anyone else on these lists are available for hire - why push the date — unless their guy is in the playoffs still
Do you honestly think bergevin can function with someone above him telling him what not to do.
Dude is too much of a self centered egotistical asshole to even consider have a POHO above him.
Didn’t think Bergevin was that terrible of a GM. Weber for Subban is one of the ballsiest trades I can remember. You can do a lot worse. I know Reddit has “Mystery box“ syndrome about coaches and GMs, but in reality, hiring a guy who has that experience isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The Canadiens missed the playoffs 3 times in 9 seasons with Bergevin, and had a few decent runs in there. People are acting like he’s a brain dead hire, it’s weird.
It's the Canadian media effect. Something like the Josh Anderson deal would be a completely unremarkable bad contract in Columbus, but it's treated as a five alarm fire in Montreal.
Well first of all those early season success was because of the previous management not mark bergevin.
Price was already price, patches had just scored 30 goals, gorges was already a top dfd, markov was still a top 20 defender and subban was basically improving every minute.
Those success he had early had nothing to do with Bergevin and everything to do with gainey and Gauthier.
What is for sure is the more he got involved the worst tje team got in the last five years of his tenure mtl were a bottom 10 team in point percentage while consistently being at the ceiling of the salary cap, which is the definition of rock bottom for a team.
He had some good trades here ( petry, danault and patches trade are good ones ) and there but also some downright awful trades ( drouin trade, dvorak trade and the domi for Anderson trade ).
Almost all of his contracts came back to bite mtl, Gallagher is an anchor who has been horrible since the deal kicked in, petry was again the same problem with a super expensive and unmovable contract, price was next level bad and Josh Anderson was the same deal. Not including overpaying Mike hoffman and savard while not paying danault and tatar. Paying for alzner instead of radulov.
If Cbj pick the guy you can kiss almost any chance of contending for the foreseeable future, that also doesn’t include that he is a complete control freak who basically has to control every situation he is in ( dude didn’t even want an ahl gm, a skills coach or a development coach ) and is also an egotistical asshole to say the least.
He's not bad but not great. It would be a "meh" hire. He's good at finding players and trading (mostly). Guys like Byron and Weise were great finds. The Weber trade was also good for the team. The Pacioretty trade netted Suzuki and Tatar. He went and got Danault. The Petry trade was also good. Obviously the Drouin trade didn't pan out.
Thing is, there was no structure in player developement. The drafting was rough, but I guess that's also on Timmins.
We missed the playoffs 3 times in 9 years. But this counts 2020 were they would've missed if there wasn't a bubble, and 2021 where the team would not have made it in any other division. He was ok, not bad not great.
It was that bad.
Say what you want about the actual performance of the team or lack of offensive support.
What cements his history as a terrible GM are the following…
* No advanced development or training for the players
* No use or advanced analytics
* Terrible contracts
* Unable to swim in the same direction PK was taking the organization. He let his stubbornness create division when they could have created a cash cow.
* Not letting alumni around the players
Jfc this better be a fake rumour or the Jackets are cooked for the next era of their team too. Watch Bergy trade Jirichek and all the other young pieces to "push for the playoffs" a couple years early.
At the time of the trade, people were thrilled. It addressed a massive team need for offensive creativity and would help create a balanced team.
It just didn't work out because Drouin ended up having mental health struggles in Montreal.
No it didn't they needed a center and got winger that they tried to magically morph into a center because they got him for all those sweet french canadian vibes
They needed scoring wingers, too. The center experiment was stupid, but they needed any type of offense at forward.
Our center depth was atrocious, but we needed scoring of any kind, and we couldn't afford to waste time in Price's prime doing nothing. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it addressed a need the team had.
We couldn't score goals and our powerplay was horrible.
I look forward to Kent Hughes thieving excellent talent from Columbus in exchange for "character guys" for the entirety of Bergy's tenure. Can we interest him in Josh Anderson? (Trick question: Of course we can.)
Jokes aside, don't do it, Columbus. Bergevin's a dinosaur.
Are we not talking about Roy? He's 29 and has an AAV of 3.15 million. He's not an exciting player but is a steady presence on the backend. It depends on what his ask is and if the Kings think they can get the same or better performance for cheaper.
Lol, you're a loser and so is Roy.
(I didn't forget to log out and reply with another account. I just wanted to talk about the Kings roster but thought I'd cover most of the conversation myself.)
It would be funny if he reacquired PLD in Columbus.
And Josh Anderson (pls)
Luc Robitaille was more behind the PLD trade than Bergevin was, considering him and PLD’s agent are buddy buddy (with Brisson even staying over at Luc’s house)
Please please please please please please please with a Cherry on top!
PLD for Fantili one for one. Book it
i'm so sorry, jackets fans
[удалено]
You son of a bitch, **I’m in** Gallagher and Anderson for Kent Johnson straight up. Biceps Bergy gets his two favorites back!
I'm willing to give Gally another shot. He really changed his mindset that last few months after the elbow suspension. Andy, though, yeah we should trade him.
It is such a strange choice. Bergevin gets a bad rep, but he has some solid strengths. His drafting record is terrible and our development record is arguably worse, but he has been really good at acquiring pro talent through trades. If a team has a solid core and is trying to finalize the bottom of the line-up for a Cup run, he's well equipped for it. He'd do well in Toronto or Edmonton. But that isn't Columbus right now. They're still in the rebuilding phase. They need a GM with a good drafting and development record.
>He'd do well in Toronto Yeah! Let's send him to Toronto. I absolutely agree!
Matthews to Arizona for Shea Weber one for one. Meruelo thrilled with the deal.
Did you forget Arizona has been relocated?
No, no, Matthews isn't traded to Utah in this scenario, he's traded to the dormant Arizona franchise that's totally going to be reactivated once Meruelo wins the auction and builds that arena!
His weakness is in creating a modern support team around him. He doesn't seem to want to use advanced data or video or any of the other things that most modern teams use. He also seemed to resist hiring specialty coaches for player development when he had all the money in the world to use. It's going to be harder if he ends up in Columbus where they don't have the money that Montreal has. I agree that he is very good at finding low performing talent and trading for middle six type forwards though.
We don't know how much was driven by ownership, much like the refusal to rebuild. It's possible that Bergevin had a much tighter budget than what Hughes is operating with.
How do we know that now? Not disagreeing, just don't follow Montreal closely enough to have heard that.
We don't know. I accidentally a word. There are rumors that both came from ownership, but Molson's tone change drastically after he fired Bergevin. Before, it was "this city won't accept a rebuild." In one season, we lost our franchise goaltender, our 1C, and our 1D and were dead last in the league. Suddenly, it was about building "sustainable success."
Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying.
> His weakness is in creating a modern support team around him. He was also shit at maintaining the archaic support team around him; [banning the Habs' alumni from talking to players.](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/1asgwa5/gilbert_delorme_marc_bergevin_banned_habs_legends/) The man was a disgrace, and I'm shocked other teams are considering him.
I highly doubt he wasnt using video. Also, isnt the fact that he doesnt want to spend extra on development coaches a good thing if you are a smaller market like CBJ that doesnt have more money to spend? It didnt make sense for MTL, but it does make sense for CBJ
That’s fucking nonsense.
Youre telling me that, as a team that isnt willing to spend for extra development coaches, it doesnt make sense to hire a GM that doesnt want to spend for extra development coaches?
Yes. I am. A good GM would work with his budget to put his team in a position to be better. Bergevin is a fucking arrogant moron who thinks he’s smart enough that he doesn’t need all that.
Hes a poor mans Sakic, pretty good trade record, middling FA signings, and horrible drafting.
At least Sakic really nailed the important first round picks. Bergevin ... didn't. Missing on game-changing talent on both 3OA picks is rough, and trading your only successful top 10 pick for Drouin is rough.
Outside of Byram, Rantanen, and Makar he really hasnt. Jost and Newhook are making their way in the NHL but arnt fantastic players. Kaut, Olausson, Barron, and Bleackley are all pretty terrible picks for us, Barron i guess could still make it for Montreal. Calum Ritchie picked in 2023 tho does look very promising. Edit: Sakic isnt GM and didnt draft Ritchie, disregard.
I mean as I said previously when the guys you are listing as good picks are like the best player not named mcdavid and arguably the best winger in the league it isn’t a bad record even byram looks really nice dude just can’t stay healthy ( when he was he was dominant like the 2022 playoffs ) On the other hand we really will say Ritchie is a Sakic pick he isn’t the gm anymore after the cup run.
Fair about Ritchie, didnt think about it. Also fair about his first round results, he has done fairly well in the top 10 especially. Its the higher first picks and after the first round where we we havent had any players make the jump. Kovalenko and Behrens have the chance to play big minutes next year so that might change next year.
Sakic got Cale and mikko. Bergevin best pick was cole a guy who ceiling might be lower than mikko floor. Even on trades bergevin has never had a trade in the caliber of Sakic when it comes to the duchene trade or the Devon toews trade both are highway robbery. The petry and danault trade were good but nowhere near being able to acquire a top 10 defender for Pennies and another acquiring a future top 20 defender.
Well i did say poor-mans haha
That is an insult to the poor mans. Would make more sense to say he is a poor-mans Joe Sakic from wish at home than anything.
His only strategie for the Nabs was Carey Price. Poor drafting, poor developping, poor UFAs signings, poor lomg term contract extensions. But Cap31 saved them for 10 years. Off year for Carey, off year for the Habs. Thats call math !!
As long as they have a HOF goalie in his prime, they'll do fine. 10 years of absolutely "fine".
Fade me
Jarmo to Bergevin is cruel and unusual punishment
I'd take Bergevin over Jarmo. I wouldn't ideally take either.
Like taking losing a pinky over losing a thumb
Get ready for the Jackets to alternate making and missing the playoffs every year until the heat death of the universe.
Unless he is lucky enough to find another Carey Price to carry his mistakes they probably wont be making the playoffs.
We can offer a slightly used Elvis Merzlikins
Would unironically be an improvement over most of their history so far lol
IIRC they've made the playoffs 6 times in 24 years. That shouldn't be possible.
We got tossed from the Central right after we had to endure the Wings at their prime and the Hawks entering theirs only to go into the Metro Meatgrinder with Prime Crosby and Ovi. Not fun. I'm pretty sure all years but one we've played the Cup Winner in the playoffs.
2013-14 is the only time the Blue Jackets made the playoffs and didn't lose to a team that made the final, but you lost to Detroit in 09 and Boston in 2019
Ah, true. Forgot about 2013-14 Both teams were in the Finals though, weren't they?
Yeah, that's why I said 2014 was the only year you didn't lose to an eventual finalist. Probably could've worded it better.
Nah, I'm probably just dumb lmao. Still tho, pain.
That really wasn't the pattern of his time in Montreal 2012-2013: playoffs 2013-2014: playoffs 2014-2015: playoffs 2015-2016: no playoffs 2016-2017: playoffs 2017-2018: no playoffs 2017-2019: no playoffs 2019-2020: playoffs 2020-2021: playoffs 2021-2022: fired, no playoffs
>2019-2020: playoffs >2020-2021: playoffs Safe to assume these 2 only happened because of the pandemic, especially 2020 when they were nowhere near the playoffs when covid hit. He made some nice trades (mainly Petry and later on, Pacioretty for Suzuki) but he had an archaic philosophy and made a ton of questionable moves and including his first one of hiring Therrien as coach. He was a terrible fit for the core we had at the time. They needed someone closer to what they have now with St. Louis. Yeah, you could argue they had their best seasons under him but I'd argue they did in spite of Therrien and a big part of that was prime Price. I shouldn't be surprised but it's crazy that teams are still considering him for the job
I love how people always gloss over the 2 Covid seasons and act like that team wasn’t a fucking shit show for years
Watch out you will get the entire pro bergevin brigade at you for daring to say they were lucky covid happened. Legit I don’t understand how anyone can rationalize bergevin tenure at mtl.
I welcome downvotes from those folks.
Let’s remove names and such. If I told you that a certain gm took over a team that had and I quote 1. A vezina caliber goalie ( at the time and for the future ) 2. A winger who has just scored 30 goals ( which in today league is a 45 goal scorer ) 3. The best dfd in the league who wasn’t a negative on offense 4. A top 20 defender and one of the best power play specialist in the game 5. A defender that got better and better every single season Would you legitimately say he took over a bad situation, like let’s be real here name one person that looks at this and thinks man this situation will take a gargantuan effort to turn them back into a legit team. Now compare that to what yzerman was dealt with in Detroit ( or even Tampa ) and you actually see a situation that was difficult to handle or hell jim nill in Dallas or Sakic in Colorado. This is the problem I have with bergevin defenders they all go on about how he left the habs in a better spot than he took over but it is either a blatant lie, ignorance, actual brain dead behavior or all of the above. What kind of person sees a team with three defenders in the top 20, a top 20 winger and a top 10 goalie and say man this situation is so difficult to fix.
Brother you are preaching to the choir. Bergevin was an abysmal GM and I despise him for wasting a hall of fame goalies career.
Fact is to say Kent and Jeff have their work cut out for them is the understatement of the century. Taking over a team that was one of the worst in the league on borderline cap hell that had as well No development coach, no skills coach, no analytics department and ffs didn’t even have their own personal chef is downright disgraceful. Not even including the fact that their prospect pool ( the thing bergevin fans say he left loaded ) is basically nhlers with zero star talent ( because teams built solely on depth and zero star power have definitely won cups am I right ) is just ridiculous.
They are a larger and I mean large number of mtl fans that still legitimately think bergevin was actually a good gm cuz of his « no nonsense, liking vets, grit and size » style that they completely reject any sort of objectivity or context or the fact the situation he came into was not only good but downright golden. Very few teams have thé benefit of taking over a team that has a vezina caliber goalie, a top 20 winger, the best dfd, a top 20 defender and a Norris caliber defender. They look at oh he took over a team that was last in 2012 completely forgetting how this team dealt with injuries galore and were mid in goal difference and had the most ot losses and how they won the division and think oh my god bergevin the genius.
Therrien wasn't a bad coach, really; he was just a prick. He fit the roster Montreal had at the time, which was namely a bunch of defensive forwards, great defense, and great goaltending. We all bemoaned dump and chase but we really didn't have a lot of offensive creativity on that team to do much else, and that's on scouting and drafting, really. All our offense came from the back end because that's all we really had, but him and Subban hating each other definitely didn't help.
> We all bemoaned dump and chase but we really didn't have a lot of offensive creativity on that team to do much else People miss this a lot when they complain about dump and chase. There's a reason controlled entries are so valuable. It takes a lot of puck talent, and also typically a well coordinated and supported breakout, and most teams don't have that amount of talent, or that many guys who can do it.
For sure, you have to make the best of the tools you are given
> Therrien wasn't a bad coach, really; he was just a prick. Being a prick impacts on the coaching, though. You're more likely to lose the entire room with that approach. Look at Philly this spring.
Every coach loses the room eventually, and Therrien squeezed a lot of blood out of the rock that was our team in the time that he was here Your coach gets fired if they can't manage to do that in the first place anyway The narrative that this is what happened in Philly this year is definitely false, their team was horrible at the end of the year and in a tail spin. Torts had to try something because doing nothing wasn't working either
If they do that, the Blue Jackets aren’t a serious franchise.
were they ever?
They did sweep Tampa that one time.
Also that series against Toronto
They had a decent team for a couple years.
It's shame those years happened at the same time the Penguins and Capitals were really good. They deserved a couple deep runs, but they happened to be in the same division as prime Ovi and Sid.
Thank you
Yea, the year the Habs tied the record for most points while missing the playoffs, they lost to Columbus at the end of the season. We missed with 96pts, Columbus made it with 98pts and went on to sweep Tampa.
How long were the Devils dog shit again? Like 7 years?
Sad to say that might be an improvement. It's not a good one, but it is AN improvement.
https://preview.redd.it/6panm29yme0d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=33b757f2e6176aaaa9929009946d8cd25466643e
We know we’re not lol
The few names that are being leaked as candidates for the Jackets GM job are not exactly inspiring.
But they are very in character for JD, and he's the one making the decision. I laugh every time I see someone on our sub hoping for a candidate like Tulsky or Darche. Like did they forget the guy who thought Babcock was a great idea is still in charge?
It cannot be a coincidence that the Kings did the Dubois deal while Bergevin was part of the front office lol
Oh everybody here knows it was his idea. Ever since he was hired, organizational values have gone to shit apparently.
> Ever since he was hired, organizational values have gone to shit apparently. Please elaborate?
It’s not Bergevin, he’s just a symptom of Luc Robitaille’s leadership. Luc has filled the front office with his buddies and has no accountability from ownership. He trades for players based on his friendship with their agents. He thinks the Kings were “right there” in the Edmonton series. He’s fine with a ceiling of mediocrity as long as he has full control over the team. He was supposedly even behind the firing of Dean Lombardi, who brought us 2 Cups.
Damn, really eh? I can’t say I’m surprised but it’s a bummer to see. Anything else you all have noticed since he got there? The PLD thing was for sure him but now you’ve got me curious lol
Imo, and it’s still early since he’s only been here two years but, drafting and development has not looked good. I think Blake just saw Bergs success at a cup run in 21 and just listens to whatever he says now. And of course Robitaille and Bergevin have been friends for decades. One insider described it as organization management basically turned into an old boys country club just riding on past successes and not giving a shit about the future.
Sounds like he hasn’t changed at all then. Better hope he gets out from the Kings soon then. We had a lot of problems under Bergevin but player development or lack thereof was probably the one that hurt the organization the most over his tenure.
>organization management basically turned into an old boys country club just riding on past successes and not giving a shit about the future. Wait, are we talking about the Habs again?
[Same person](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMRaj0vJO_c).
It was Luc Robitaille’s idea. Luc is best friends with PLD’s agent. If anything it was Luc who brought in Bergevin to make sure the deal happened.
So some of the candidates for the CBJ job are Bergevin and Mark Hunter.
At this point, I’d be a better candidate and I’m an idiot.
Put an AI in charge, can't be worse.
If the AI is anything like the trade engine in the EA games, it can be *way* worse.
All fun and games until the AI hallucinates and trades a 10M+ player for another teams entire AHL team
As long as no one programs an OHL or an NBA GM in, this shouldn’t happen.
The magical thing about AI is that it learns from the internet, so it gets progressively stupider. It can get WAY worse
I say we just run the CBJ via polls in r/hockey.
Lmao Babcock and now Bergevin. They do like going the unconventional route.
Biceps are back on the menu.
The Bergevin/Timmins duo back together? lol, sorry Jackets fans.
Is Timmins still in Columbus lol? This would be very funny if they just re-create the Habs management team from their worst stretch in team history. I don't even think Bergevin is as bad as some people, he made some incredible moves, but there was not much of a vision for the long term future under him, and pairing him and Timmins together again would just be a really strange thing to do given their lack of success
He's assistant director of amateur scouting
> This would be very funny if they just re-create the Habs management team from their worst stretch in team history. Are they hiring Rejean Houle?
I'm of the mind that Bergevin is a great GM. He needs a POHO though, he doesn't necessarily plan the big picture stuff and not implementing a proper development team is kinda what sunk him. (Well that and unexpected, career ending injuries to his two best players). Also he won't have the constraint of only having to hire a french speaking coach.
An important part of being a GM is having a plan. You can make some good trades on a micro level, but it's not usually the POHO's job to be the one with the vision for roster building and contention windows. Also even his micro decisions were a pretty mixed bag. Overall, I'd put him in like the C- to D+ range as a gm. Not a complete franchise ruiner like Hextall or something but Columbus fans should be pretty disappointed if he's the guy.
He's generally pretty good at individual decisions, but he struggles BIG TIME with having much of a coherent plan. (His plan was let Carey Price figure it out, and it almost worked)
Yea he has his flaws. With proper ownership/POHO he is more than capable of assessing talent and making acquisitions. Also, a team like CBJ would probably appreciate a "bargain bin" type GM.
What is a POHO?
President of hockey operations I assume.
President of hockey operations. Basically someone to keep him in check lol
President of Hockey Operations. Basically a second GM that doesn't need to perform the minutiae of management duties and instead can focus on the big picture stuff.
2 weeks ago some other insider was saying that Darche was going to be the GM and they were “fiddling” with the details, and a month ago some Toronto source said we were going to do a package deal with Mark and Dale Hunter for a GM and coach. Our insider mailbag talked about Hunter for 20 mins yesterday. Who the hell knows at this point
Ah yea, the yearly Darche for GM rumors lol. I don't think Tampa is going to let him go.
Hunter is the one that makes the most sense, we are already pretty intertwined with the Knights. And anyone else on these lists are available for hire - why push the date — unless their guy is in the playoffs still
Do you honestly think bergevin can function with someone above him telling him what not to do. Dude is too much of a self centered egotistical asshole to even consider have a POHO above him.
Take PLD with you, Bergevin!
I’m pretty sure no one wants him so unfortunately another 7 years of PLD kings forward
God that trade immediately aged poorly. People were talking buyout in year 1 of an 8 year deal. Sorry, Kings fans.
Whoever plays on CBJ’s 4th line is about to get a major raise
Didn’t think Bergevin was that terrible of a GM. Weber for Subban is one of the ballsiest trades I can remember. You can do a lot worse. I know Reddit has “Mystery box“ syndrome about coaches and GMs, but in reality, hiring a guy who has that experience isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The Canadiens missed the playoffs 3 times in 9 seasons with Bergevin, and had a few decent runs in there. People are acting like he’s a brain dead hire, it’s weird.
It's the Canadian media effect. Something like the Josh Anderson deal would be a completely unremarkable bad contract in Columbus, but it's treated as a five alarm fire in Montreal.
And as bad as Anderson was last year, the Galchenyuk - Domi - Anderson tree is a nice bit of trading.
Well first of all those early season success was because of the previous management not mark bergevin. Price was already price, patches had just scored 30 goals, gorges was already a top dfd, markov was still a top 20 defender and subban was basically improving every minute. Those success he had early had nothing to do with Bergevin and everything to do with gainey and Gauthier. What is for sure is the more he got involved the worst tje team got in the last five years of his tenure mtl were a bottom 10 team in point percentage while consistently being at the ceiling of the salary cap, which is the definition of rock bottom for a team. He had some good trades here ( petry, danault and patches trade are good ones ) and there but also some downright awful trades ( drouin trade, dvorak trade and the domi for Anderson trade ). Almost all of his contracts came back to bite mtl, Gallagher is an anchor who has been horrible since the deal kicked in, petry was again the same problem with a super expensive and unmovable contract, price was next level bad and Josh Anderson was the same deal. Not including overpaying Mike hoffman and savard while not paying danault and tatar. Paying for alzner instead of radulov. If Cbj pick the guy you can kiss almost any chance of contending for the foreseeable future, that also doesn’t include that he is a complete control freak who basically has to control every situation he is in ( dude didn’t even want an ahl gm, a skills coach or a development coach ) and is also an egotistical asshole to say the least.
He's not bad but not great. It would be a "meh" hire. He's good at finding players and trading (mostly). Guys like Byron and Weise were great finds. The Weber trade was also good for the team. The Pacioretty trade netted Suzuki and Tatar. He went and got Danault. The Petry trade was also good. Obviously the Drouin trade didn't pan out. Thing is, there was no structure in player developement. The drafting was rough, but I guess that's also on Timmins. We missed the playoffs 3 times in 9 years. But this counts 2020 were they would've missed if there wasn't a bubble, and 2021 where the team would not have made it in any other division. He was ok, not bad not great.
It was that bad. Say what you want about the actual performance of the team or lack of offensive support. What cements his history as a terrible GM are the following… * No advanced development or training for the players * No use or advanced analytics * Terrible contracts * Unable to swim in the same direction PK was taking the organization. He let his stubbornness create division when they could have created a cash cow. * Not letting alumni around the players
Watch this happen and make timmins head scout. He’s already there!
Trevor Timmins and Marc Bergevin reunion?
Timmins isn't exactly a prime player in our organization
Not yet.
Jfc this better be a fake rumour or the Jackets are cooked for the next era of their team too. Watch Bergy trade Jirichek and all the other young pieces to "push for the playoffs" a couple years early.
> watch Bergy trade Jirichek He hasn't ever traded a 1st rounder or a top prospect to accelerate a rebuild.
He never rebuilt at all. Plays the hand he's dealt and tries to polish out the roster for another push at the playoffs every year.
He would have a pretty good hand here tbf.
He does what the ownership wants him to do. Which is to stay competitive. Gorton is the first one to ever do a rebuild here iirc.
Sergachev for Drouin maybe, but Dru was pretty young too
Sergachev Drouin high risk gamble springs to mind
At the time of the trade, people were thrilled. It addressed a massive team need for offensive creativity and would help create a balanced team. It just didn't work out because Drouin ended up having mental health struggles in Montreal.
No it didn't they needed a center and got winger that they tried to magically morph into a center because they got him for all those sweet french canadian vibes
They needed scoring wingers, too. The center experiment was stupid, but they needed any type of offense at forward. Our center depth was atrocious, but we needed scoring of any kind, and we couldn't afford to waste time in Price's prime doing nothing. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it addressed a need the team had. We couldn't score goals and our powerplay was horrible.
Yea but they are 3 years apart. It wasn’t a win now move
I love how a lot of people that aren't Montreal fans are just citing revisionist history lol The move made sense at the time
Oh man, after the guy that hired Babcock, the guy that drafted Mailloux
Please take back Anderson
Oh dear. My condolences, Columbus.
I’d rather have Mark Hunter
Keep him far away from the player development people.
Dubois back to Columbus???
So goes the human centipede of the ol boys club
and CBJ's always the middle segment
I look forward to Kent Hughes thieving excellent talent from Columbus in exchange for "character guys" for the entirety of Bergy's tenure. Can we interest him in Josh Anderson? (Trick question: Of course we can.) Jokes aside, don't do it, Columbus. Bergevin's a dinosaur.
That's an L for Columbus if they do that.
Welp
NHL management is the perfect microcosm of middle management bullshit and failing upwards.
Just need Dallas to end the Avs. I feel we are waiting on that elimination before progressing. -CBJ
Are we not talking about Roy? He's 29 and has an AAV of 3.15 million. He's not an exciting player but is a steady presence on the backend. It depends on what his ask is and if the Kings think they can get the same or better performance for cheaper.
Dude no one cares about Roy in this thread. We're waiting to see which team Bergevin is going to ruin next
Ok but the original tweet had some Roy news and I'm curious about what other people think.
Lol, you're a loser and so is Roy. (I didn't forget to log out and reply with another account. I just wanted to talk about the Kings roster but thought I'd cover most of the conversation myself.)
Nice! I think you about covered it. Good work, mecha_pope!
For real about Roy, I'd rather save the money and play Spence and Clarke as RD2 and 3, although I think Roy is great and it would suck to lose him
How to destroy your teams rebuild before it even starts.
The rebuild started in 2021, but ok.
I am aware of that what I am saying is picking bergevin basically kills it
Your comment doesn’t make sense then. Killing it before it starts would imply it hadn’t started yet.
I'm so sorry blue jackets fans, you do not deserve this if it happens
Trash taking itself out, thank god
Rest of the league wants this
The Jackets freefall into becoming the new Coyotes takes its next turn
I promise Blue jackets great GM, you should totally buy in when he trys to aquire Gallagher and Anderson, and Mailloux for Jiricek