Bad Conduct | If you could take a decision from a professional Montreal club, what would it be?

Every week, sports journalists from Press answer a question with pleasure, and a little insolence as well.

Mathias Brunet

Guy Lafleur is 32 years old at the dawn of the 1983 season. He has just had his least productive season in 9 years, but 70 points, including 30 goals, in 80 games, this remains nevertheless very acceptable, and above all a peak at within the team. But new coach Jacques Lemaire wants to give the Canadian a more defensive character and Lafleur no longer seems to fit into his plans. The biggest star of the Glorious since Maurice Richard and Jean Béliveau is found to dry on the bench that fall, behind even the Mario Tremblay, Ryan Walter, Bob Gainey, Mike McPhee and company. Disgusted, he announced to general manager Serge Savard his departure after another match where his equipment had not even had time to get wet with sweat. Ronald Corey, Serge Savard and Jacques Lemaire do not hold him back, to the dismay of the Blond Demon, as he is nicknamed. Lafleur still had a lot to give, however, his spectacular return to New York, then to Quebec, after three years of inactivity, demonstrated it. This giant deserved a better end with the Canadian.

Miguel bujold

Was Marc Bergevin convinced by Trevor Timmins when he surprised everyone by opting for Jesperi Kotkaniemi with the third pick in the 2018 draft? The Canadian had thereby ignored Brady Tkachuk, then considered one of the top three prospects of the auction with Rasmus Dahlin and Andrei Svechnikov. Tkachuk may not have been a center player like Kotkaniemi, who drives the fourth line in Carolina, but he had several elements that the CH needed (and would) badly, including fighting spirit, size and leadership. Tkachuk will never complete the scoresheet, but will be a 25-30 goal scorer, who will be at his peak in the most important moments. Able to protect his comrades if the going a bit too rough, Tkachuk is the kind of player who makes his teammates grow a few inches on the ice, as they say. With Tkachuk, Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, CH would have had their first line for the next 10 years. And surely his captain. Tkachuk would have framed so well in the team that it is very difficult to understand how Bergevin could have let such an opportunity slip away, especially when we know that the former defender appreciates courageous players who put themselves in it. Easy to say three or four years later? Your football journalist said it even before the 2018 draft: Tkachuk was perfect for the Habs. My friend and the ace of our sports section, Guillaume Lefrançois, could confirm it to you because I never fail to remind him whenever the opportunity arises… Bad decisions, all the teams make, but in the end. The recent history of Montreal clubs, it hurts particularly badly, and will continue to do so for a long time to come.

Simon drouin

The sale of the Expos to Jeffrey Loria in 1999. Thanks to multiple calls for capital, the charming New York art dealer went from a minority partner to a main shareholder. His stepson, the ineffable David Samson, succeeded in destroying the little capital of sympathy of the population towards the place of the franchise. For a training nicknamed Nos Z’amours, it had to be done. The following year, I remember covering a shareholders’ meeting with Alexandre Pratt while standing in front of a room above the Pie-IX metro. The local owners had come out of there with a burial face, while Samson had tried to lull us to sleep with his nasal voice on the press gallery. It was already the beginning of the end. The rest of the coverage of the team’s activities had looked like too long a wake.

Katherine Harvey-Pinard

1^er July 2017. You see me coming. Alexei Emelin has just been claimed in the Golden Knights expansion draft. Nathan Beaulieu and Mikhail Sergachev were swapped. Negotiations with Andrei Markov are going badly. Marc Bergevin, by trying to fill the voids, grants a contract of five years and 23.125 million to Karl Alzner. Alzner ended up playing only 95 games and amassing only 12 points in the blue-white-red uniform. He played 87 games with the Laval Rocket. I’ve never been very good with numbers, but that’s not exactly what you’d expect from a defender who earns 4.6 million per season, is it? The Canadian bought back his contract in October 2020. If I had a decision to take, it would be to hire him initially in 2017. Other decisions taken that summer could also be reviewed.

Richard Labbé

Many believe that the Expos died with the strike of 1994, but I submit that the long agony began 10 years earlier. In 1984, therefore, and just a few days before Christmas, the Expos management gave the New York Mets quite a gift: Gary Carter, star receiver and most popular Z’Amours player, took over the management of Shea Stadium, in return of four players, including hopeful Floyd Youmans. To justify this awful transaction, the Expos management spoke of Youmans as a future leading pitcher, and indeed, on the day of his first match at the Stadium (I was there!), This young man had thrown bullets, and we thought, yeah, maybe, Carter’s trade might have served some purpose. But Youmans lasted the length of a Vanilla Ice success, while Carter led the Mets to a championship. A failed exchange looks like this.

Guillaume Lefrançois

The beginning of the 1980s is not the most glorious period in the history of the Canadiens. Yet the team had a golden chance to restart the machine after the dynasty of the 1970s. In the 1980 draft, the Habs indeed hold the very first choice. The last time the CH spoke first, he drafted Guy Lafleur. This time, the Canadian turns to Doug Wickenheiser, a forward who has just terrorized the Junior Western League. Two rows later, Chicago selects Denis Savard, a talented striker who played in Verdun, in the backyard of the Habs. Wickenheiser will total 115 points in just over three seasons in Montreal. This is a little less than what Savard will amass in his second season (119 points) and his third (121 points). The Canadian will not win a single series in Wickenheiser’s three full seasons with the club, and will be eliminated twice by the Nordiques, the nemesis, before returning to the Stanley Cup in 1986. Would the story have been different with Savard?

Simon-Olivier Lorange

Marc Bergevin, in the previous 15 days, had traded Mikhail Sergachev and Nathan Beaulieu without getting a defender in return, and lost Alexei Emelin in the expansion draft. Yet when 38-year-old Andrei Markov asked for a sum that seemed disproportionate to him, the Canadiens GM said: thank you, but no thank you. 1^er July 2017 undoubtedly represents a turning point for the CH and its management, probably much more than the Subban-Weber exchange. That day, Bergevin concluded the complete and express purge of the left flank of his defense. More than four years later, his team are still feeling the effects, to the point that the prolonged absence of Joel Edmundson, who was a supportive player when he played in St. Louis or Carolina, is now taking on proportions. apocalyptic. Barring a miracle, the Canadiens will miss the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons since Markov’s departure – this excludes the candy participation of the summer of 2020. It is obvious that to revisit decisions years after the facts is easy when you know the subsequent events. Overpaying number 79 probably wouldn’t have saved the horrible 2017-2018 campaign or the following ones. But presumably she would have smoothed the transition in a defense that never really recovered.

Alexandre pratt

In 1989, involved in the championship race, the Expos acquired one of the major league’s best pitchers, left-hander Mark Langston, against three prospects. A stroke of genius, hailed by all. Langston was very good: 175 strikeouts in as many innings. Except the Expos missed the playoffs, and Langston left for California as a free agent. The catch? Among the hopes given up was the best left-handed pitcher of the past 75 years, Randy Johnson, winner of five Cy Young trophies…

Jean-Francois Téotonio

The divorce between Jesse Marsch and the Montreal Impact has undoubtedly been more beneficial for the coach than for the club. Hired in 2012, Marsch had done a good job with an expansion team in MLS, even though he didn’t make the playoffs. After a season, we mutually decided to move on, citing differences in philosophies. The American joined the New York Red Bulls in 2015, led them to a Supporter’s Shield and was named MLS Coach of the Year. He then studied in the Red Bull family, winning two championships and two cups with RB Salzburg in 2020 and 2021. He is now head coach of RB Leipzig: his team is battling PSG and Manchester City in Champions League, in particular. Meanwhile, the Impact / CF Montreal has had eight coaches in nine years and has only made the MLS playoffs four times during that time.