The good and bad moves of Marc Bergevin

Marc Bergevin’s reign will not have produced a Stanley Cup, but he will have produced good shots… and less good shots.

Richard Labbé
Press

The best shots

Feb. 26, 2016

In hockey, and everywhere, there is no better deal than one that pays big in return for absolutely nothing. This was the case here. That day, Marc Bergevin robbed the Chicago Blackhawks so much that he should have been loaded into a police van with his back. Thus, he ceded to the Hawks two players at the end of their career (we are polite), Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann, in return for a young striker named Phillip Danault, and a choice of 2^e tour in 2018, which became Alexander Romanov. This is called a stroke of genius: giving nothing to get quality in return. The two players ceded to the Hawks did absolutely nothing right, and Danault became the Canadiens’ first center, and most important player of the 2021 playoffs after Carey Price.

March 2, 2015

Same principle here: get something in return for almost nothing. This was again the case in the context of this transaction with the Edmonton Oilers. Defenseman Jeff Petry was awarded in return for a pick of 2^e tour in 2015 and a choice of 4^e round in 2015. For the Oilers, the choice of 4^e turn became another defenseman, Caleb Jones, who was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks in July 2021. Sure, Petry is struggling this season, and so is the whole team, but we shouldn’t forget his awesome 2021 series. , and also the seven previous seasons, where he offered very high quality hockey to the Montreal blue line.

September 10, 2018

It’s never easy to trade a player who wants to leave. Every other GM in the league knows this, and trading such a weak player often leads to bad trades. But Bergevin pulled off this magic trick by pulling out a disgruntled Max Pacioretty from Montreal to send him to Vegas for the Golden Knights’ first pick in the 2017 Draft. It was no secret that Pacioretty wanted to leave, and we were together. asks again why the Golden Knights gave away Nick Suzuki, in addition to letting go of Tomas Tatar, who nonetheless gave the Canadiens a 61-point season in 2019-20.

June 29, 2016

It was not a robbery as such; While Shea Weber came here to become a mainstay in defense, PK Subban went to Nashville to lead the Predators to a final presence, in addition to giving them seasons of 40 and 59 points. But Subban only lasted three seasons in Nashville before being traded to the New Jersey Devils. During this time, Weber became the club’s captain and also one of the leaders of the Montreal squad.

1^er july 2016

Behind the scenes, it was whispered that around 20 clubs had shown interest in Alexander Radulov. But in the end, it was in Montreal that the Russian striker chose to come to pursue his career. It is not clear what Bergevin told him to convince him, but too often, the Canadian is not used to winning this kind of derby for a coveted player. Bergevin came out on top this time around, and Radulov thanked him with a 54-point season.

The worst hits

July 23, 2021

Marc Bergevin thought he had managed a robbery by drafting Logan Mailloux with his first-round pick. Obviously, the young defenseman still hasn’t kicked a single kick in the NHL, and from a strictly hockey point of view, we will be able to judge this decision in ten years or so. But for the image of the club, this decision was a disaster, and the good feelings harvested by the club during the magic series of 2021 all took the edge for a few minutes following this controversial decision. This decision is certainly not unrelated to the present situation; it was said behind the scenes that internally, the choice of Mailloux was far from unanimous. The divorce between Bergevin and owner Geoff Molson probably began from that date.

June 27, 2016

On this date, we saw Marc Bergevin’s worst fault come to light: falling in love with support players. Perhaps because Bergevin himself has been a support player in this league, it is not clear, but he has often shown inexplicable outbursts of generosity towards this kind of player. The case of Andrew Shaw is a prime example: to give this already slowed down player with injuries a generous six-year contract for $ 23.4 million was sheer madness. Small detail: one of the choices obtained by Chicago during the exchange of Shaw to the Canadiens turned into Alex DeBrincat, who already has seasons of 41 and 32 goals behind the tie.

June 15, 2017

There are exchanges that seem good at the time. This is one of them. Jonathan Drouin had the paces of a leading attacker, and also an undeniable talent. It made sense. In fact, Jonathan Drouin remains a very talented striker. But there are two issues with this: Drouin still hasn’t become the desired impact player, and the guy who took over to Tampa Bay in that deal, Mikhail Sergachev, has become a leading defenseman for the. Lightning, able to re-launch the attack. It is right in the middle of this kind of defender that the Canadian is sorely lacking …

July 28, 2021

That day, the Kings hired Phillip Danault. As much as the acquisition of Danault was a stroke of genius, this strategy of counting under five years later during too brief negotiations was a total disaster. Without Danault, there was a domino effect in the formation of the Canadiens, and young center players found themselves with roles they weren’t ready to take on. It happened to Marc Bergevin to behave like a partisan on a few occasions, and it was certainly the case here: why give so much money to a guy who does not “score”? Answer: because it was necessary.

Summer 2017, wholesale

Summer 2021 is starting to look like summer 2017, and that’s not a good thing. In both cases, Bergevin tried to fill in important departures by filling in gaps with band-aid. This kind of approach rarely works well. In the summer of 2017, for example, the departures of Radulov and Andrei Markov were filled by Mark Streit and Ales Hemsky and Karl Alzner. It is the ideal formula to miss the series. This is right in what happened in 2017-18, as it is right in what will happen in 2021-22.