2013 Post-Mortem - Bergevin's Best/Worst Moves

[ECWHSWI]

Jagr? who cares ...your right. Can't wait to see Mike Blunden, Dumont and Armstrong in the playoffs again!

Jagr: 0G - 2A : 2 PTS, -2

isnt dominant at all, has a hard time following the PO pace actually, just like last season with the Flyers in the PO.

 

[Habs]

I'm judging him by his playoff success, tired of getting excited for the regular season.

The good - P.K , Gallagher, #27

The bad - The lol Halpern and Drewiskie trade to bolster our playoff roster.

 

[Gamimenos]

what have you done for me lately : the thread

you guys have pretty short memory/are too emotionnal about the lost

+Complete new mentality around the team, got us out of the gainey/gauthier lockdown, THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING
+Therrien, he got outcoached by the walrus but I still believe he's a good coach
+gave a real chance to the youngsters (Tinordi, Gallagher, Galchenyuk, Beaulieu, Dumont)
+Got rid of Cole at the right moment
+Got rid of Gomez
+kept a good amount of picks for what should be the best draft in years
+Halpern for free
+Budaj Extension
+Brendan Prust.
+Bouillon (I know people here don't like him, but he does a decent job most of the time and deserved to retire as a Canadiens)
+set us up for a bright future, gave me hope that this team is going in the right direction for the first time in 15 years
++his name is not Pierre Gauthier

-DD contract
-Moen
-Armstrong
-trade deadline, couldve added a little more to this team

I second this. The hate he got for the addition of Prust at that salary was unreal yet Prust proved to be worth every penny. I still like Bouillon at his cap for what he brings. The Gomez amnesty buyout hasn't been mentioned enough in this thread. I would put Armstrong in the positives as well. He was awesome for us.

 

[Monctonscout]

So, now that the season is done, what do you think of Marc Bergevin's first year as Habs GM?

What do you think were his best, what were his worst, moves?

Best:
- Signing Subban
- Re-structuring the coaching staff

Worst:
- Signing Bouillon and offering him an extension
- Giving Desharnais an early extension

How is signing and extending Bouillon a bad move? He was a very solid player and positive influence on the team. Very good move.

As for Desharnais, he's just protecting his asset. He needs him for another year at center until Galchenyuk is ready for a bigger role. At 3.5 mil, he is very easy to trade and should have a solid returnd.

IMHO his biggest mistake was not getting a guy like Kassian on waivers when he had the chance. Would have helped against teams like Toronto Boston and Ottawa who like to goon it up, at least during the season.

Also I would have tried to get Fistric and sign him for a couple more years.

 

[Coldplay]

I'm judging him by his playoff success, tired of getting excited for the regular season.

The good - P.K , Gallagher, #27

The bad - The lol Halpern and Drewiskie trade to bolster our playoff roster.

Did you watch the playoffs, dude? Halpern was everything and more as an addition that cost us zero. What more did you want from him? He raised his game when injuries hit and he did all the little things right.

Not bad for a guy who was apparently finished.

 

[Andy]

Bad: Subban bridge contract. What the hell was he thinking. From lowballing, to not trusting his ability and not taking the discount for short-term gain was just ridiculous.

Rushing to re-sign Desharnais for 4 years.

Signing Boullion to an extension.

 

[Uber Coca]

Bergevin's worst move is signing Desharnais obviously.

He got rid during the season of some salary and now has space and flexibility to change the face of this team. I think it's premature to fully evaluate him until 2 or 3 years. Let's not forget he took a team with Gomez and Kaberle with huge caphits.

 

[Lafontaine]

Wow

Shockingly narrow-minded responses on this thread. Well, its HF, so I probably shouldn't be too surprised. Bergevin made his mistakes, I'll give you that, but what does a young team need most? A patient GM, and that is what we seem to have found.

I remember visiting the boards 2 months ago and half of you were calling for trades that would have brought in veterans at the cost of Eller and/or draft picks. This team is set up beautifully for the future. I'm sure Bergevin knew that this wasn't our year before the play-offs even started. I'm happy with his no sacrifice approach.

I didn't like the Erik Cole move at first (because Cole seemed to be the kind of guy we needed), but clearly the Habs knew something we didn't - Cole has apparently checked out of the league and Ryder helped us land first place in the Division.

I don't like the DD contract either, but let's not forget that he was one of our top 3 forwards last season. Personally I hope we realize that Eller and Pleks are our true top 2 and Deharnais has no place on the squad, but even still, I hardly rate this as a mortal blunder.

Same goes with PK. We forget that truly he had yet to prove he was worth a long term $5/$6 a year deal. So he comes out and silences doubters. Fine, not really a mistake, and not especially predictable. It would have been a worse mistake the other way... had we sunk ourselves with the big contract and he came out playing like the immature kid he looked like in game three of this series. At worst this move saved us $3 million this season and will cost us an extra $2 million a year going forward.

Drewske, who cares? Boullion depth signing, no harm done? Budaj, meh. Kaberle, fine. Prust, fantastic. Gomez, finally.

The core of Eller, Galchenyuk, PK, Pacioretty and Gallagher (if they can protect him) are as good as any young group in the league. Pleks, Prust, Bourque, Moen, Gorges and Deharnais are locked into reasonable long term contracts and both Tinordi and Beaulieu are being smartly eased into the mix of soon to be departing older defencemen. We have, what, 5 top 3 round picks in a great draft? Hopefully 1 or 2 of those picks will become a part of this project. Let's hope he drafts bigger players to address our holes in that area. There is also a pretty deep selection of larger bodies in the UFA pool this year. You can expect another Prust type signing after what happened in Ottawa. Bergevin was watching the same games we were.

If we ever get NHL caliber goaltending on a regular basis this team will be one of the best in the league for at least the next 5 seasons. Things are looking good. Thank god HF couch GMs don't run this team!

 

[MSLs absurd thighs]

Bad: Subban bridge contract. What the hell was he thinking. From lowballing, to not trusting his ability and not taking the discount for short-term gain was just ridiculous.

Rushing to re-sign Desharnais for 4 years.

Signing Boullion to an extension.

Subban's bridge contract will keep going through next season where the cap decreases, giving us the opportunity to add some much-needed elements to our roster. By the time his contract extension is effective, the cap will probably be back up to 70M, with guys like Markov and Gionta finishing their contract.

It gives Bergevin cap room and growth move on the short-term, he chose to do this even if he has to pay PK 2M more per season than he would have, which, when you think about it, is minor when it comes down to signing a franchise d-man.

Signing Desharnais looks like it was a mistake of him, no question.

Signing Bouillon, a depth d-man to an armless 1 year, 1.5M contract is neither good or bad.

To answer the OT:

(+) Trading Erik Cole for a more flexible contract/better player in Michael Ryder
(+) Hiring Michel Therrien, who brought back some emotion in this locker room that had none
(+) Signing Prust to a long-term deal
(+) Picking Halpern up, it was a great move
(+) Not making any move at the trade deadline, in retrospective, was the RIGHT move
(+) Signing Pacioretty to a good cap hit on a long-term deal was the good thing to do, no matter what people say here.
(+) Hiring a bunch of guys to surround him will prove to be very important
(+) The bridge contract to PK Subban was the right thing to do to insure some growth space in the next year for his team. In retrospective, it'll be more expensive to re-sign Subban, but the team will have benefited from it.
(+) Sending Gomez home. Enough said.

(-) Desharnais contract. More and more concerning.
(-) Price at 6.5M per season still looks like an awfully expensive contract if he doesn't step it up.
(-) Moen's contract.
(-) Taking way too long to add grit to his lineup, to help a guy like Prust who just got 4 years older in half a season in MTL.
(-) Lefebvre in Hamilton.
(-) Not adding enough veteran scoring depth in Hamilton.

 

[Monctonscout]

That was a stupid move and many people called it from day 1. Subban is gonna cost much more now that he would have if he was signed to a longer term contract like he wanted (BTW, he wasn't asking for too much given the contracts that are signed in this league these days).

4 more years of Desharnias was a HUGE mistake.. especially at 3.5M per year, thats aweful..

Bad: Subban bridge contract. What the hell was he thinking. From lowballing, to not trusting his ability and not taking the discount for short-term gain was just ridiculous.

Rushing to re-sign Desharnais for 4 years.

Signing Boullion to an extension.

Just look at Buffalo and Tyler Myers as a good argument against big, early long term deals to young players. Subban also had some maturity issues and learn to be more about the team and less about him. The whole situation made him a better player. Hard to see that as any kind of a negative.

Again, I don't see how in any way, shape or form extending Bouillon or Dd are bad moves?

 

[CGG]

So what would all of you geniouses done with DD? He's an RFA. He will need a new contract. You either dump him before the playoffs (which would have been a disaster), you let him walk by not tendering a QO (which is dumb dumb dumb), you try to sign him for something less than $3.5 million (which doesn't stop the mindblowing hatred the guy suddenly has) or you try to trade him, when no team will be willing to trade for a $3 million range smallish centre leading up to cap hell.

What would you have done with him? Dump him for nothing? Watch our foreward depth take another hit? Let his 60 point capabilities walk away? What?

 

[MSLs absurd thighs]

So what would all of you geniouses done with DD? He's an RFA. He will need a new contract. You either dump him before the playoffs (which would have been a disaster), you let him walk by not tendering a QO (which is dumb dumb dumb), you try to sign him for something less than $3.5 million (which doesn't stop the mindblowing hatred the guy suddenly has) or you try to trade him, when no team will be willing to trade for a $3 million range smallish centre leading up to cap hell.

What would you have done with him? Dump him for nothing? Watch our foreward depth take another hit? Let his 60 point capabilities walk away? What?

Waiting a little bit before giving him as much as 4 years on a contract might have been wise... Plus, it's clear we have a logjam at center.

What's the excuse to put Galchenyuk or Eller, who had just as many points without playing on the PP, all while being bigger, stronger and more complete as players, on the wing in your starting lineup? There is none.

 

[Seb]

Desharnais' caphit is 3,5M$, it's meaningless. It's nowhere near as bad as people make it sound, especially for a 50-60 pts player.

There are good reasons to want DD out, but his contract is not one of them. It wasn't a bad move by MB.

 

[hototogisu]

So what would all of you geniouses done with DD? He's an RFA. He will need a new contract. You either dump him before the playoffs (which would have been a disaster), you let him walk by not tendering a QO (which is dumb dumb dumb), you try to sign him for something less than $3.5 million (which doesn't stop the mindblowing hatred the guy suddenly has) or you try to trade him, when no team will be willing to trade for a $3 million range smallish centre leading up to cap hell.

What would you have done with him? Dump him for nothing? Watch our foreward depth take another hit? Let his 60 point capabilities walk away? What?

Waited until the summer to evaluate his season on the whole, as well as Eller and Galchenyuk's seasons (i.e. his direct competition) and try to knock the term down to 1-2 years based on those factors.

 

[GinoCyber*]

It's hard to judge by a 48 game season. In other years, we typically take a nose dive half way through the season. This year, near the end, we started our nose dive again.

Perhaps we would have finished 10th if the season was not cut short and perhaps MB would have made better moves near trade deadline assuming we would be struggling to make the playoffs but we'll never know.

I just hope he doesn't base his moves on a 48 game season.

 

[sharks9]

Did you watch the playoffs, dude? Halpern was everything and more as an addition that cost us zero. What more did you want from him? He raised his game when injuries hit and he did all the little things right.

Not bad for a guy who was apparently finished.

Yea I loved the Halpern addition. He was 55.6% on his faceoffs this year, no reason why we can't keep him for under a million.

 

[JustAHabFan]

From the beginning, I was against low balling Subban and get him to sign a bridge contract. Half of the fanbase supported MB at the time. Now people start to realize it was a big mistake from MB to sign Subban short term.

 

[Hullois]

From the beginning, I was against low balling Subban and get him to sign a bridge contract. Half of the fanbase supported MB at the time. Now people start to realize it was a big mistake from MB to sign Subban short term.

See HiggsBozon's post above

Subban's bridge contract will keep going through next season where the cap decreases, giving us the opportunity to add some much-needed elements to our roster. By the time his contract extension is effective, the cap will probably be back up to 70M, with guys like Markov and Gionta finishing their contract.

It gives Bergevin cap room and growth move on the short-term, he chose to do this even if he has to pay PK 2M more per season than he would have, which, when you think about it, is minor when it comes down to signing a franchise d-man.

 

[MSLs absurd thighs]

Yea I loved the Halpern addition. He was 55.6% on his faceoffs this year, no reason why we can't keep him for under a million.

Uhm, yeah, I got one. He's a 38 years old 4th line center on a team like ours which needs some serious help physically.

It's not going to cut it.

 

[Born in 1909]

So many cons he is a questionable GM already.

At least the future wasn't mortgaged.

(Habs sure could have used Ryan McD, eh? .... whatever)

 

[ThaDevilGirl]

Desharnais' caphit is 3,5M$, it's meaningless. It's nowhere near as bad as people make it sound, especially for a 50-60 pts player.

There are good reasons to want DD out, but his contract is not one of them. It wasn't a bad move by MB.

The contract isn't terrible assuming he can go back to his production of last year. It can be movable to a team that needs offensive depth. However I question the timing of the extension. I think MB should have waited until the end of the season but I'm not a GM.

 

[Habs]

Did you watch the playoffs, dude? Halpern was everything and more as an addition that cost us zero. What more did you want from him? He raised his game when injuries hit and he did all the little things right.

Not bad for a guy who was apparently finished.

Really? Halpern was MB's playoff run acquisition, and you are going to give him anything but a D for this move? Its not a Halpern bashing, it's me dissecting MB's moves, which is what this thread is about.

 

[hototogisu]

Yea I loved the Halpern addition. He was 55.6% on his faceoffs this year, no reason why we can't keep him for under a million.

I thought he was one of our best players in this series and played especially well last night. Anyone calling him a mistake is out to lunch.

 

[teh doors]

Halpern was great. Could have used a shrewd move like that on defence.

Bergevin's worst move was not picking up a veteran defenceman. It's alright to stray from the almighty plan when your team is unexpectedly in 2nd place. They needed one more guy BEFORE Emelin went down. The team needs five top four defenceman, and they need to be a diverse group. You have seven or eight guys to make up your defence core, if a bunch of them do the same thing, well that doesn't seem very bright to me.. if it isn't addressed this off season they will again be a good regular season team that fades when things get tough.

 

[overlords]

Would love someone like boyd gordon, but if our worst case scenario is re-signing Halpern, giddyup.