News Article: Geoff Molson re-affirms confidence in Marc Bergevin, will not hire a president of hockey operations

[Omar]

All I can tell you is there will be no Cup in the near future for this group. I’d venture 6-10 years if we either change ownership or Molson gets his act together.

 

[hvac412]

No one here is surprised. I mean even if Molson was to fire bergevin tomorrow a PR person would tell him to say blah blah great leadership blah blah happy going forward, blah blah many years to come. Much like Rush RRHOF speech for this presser. However it feel more like he actually believes those words. Which as newspeaks would say is PROBLEMATIC.

The whole NHL playoff shinanigans is about money not the fans. How do you recoup the lost salaries, how about not having more and more asterix's along players stats and playoff winners. Maybe a longshot wins it? (I know marc is hoping for this one) Now if you are willing to do this, why not make actual reforms to hockey.

Honestly once june rolls around I am done with hockey. I check in for draft and UFA, and not much else till october. Preseason is only OK to get a peepshow of guys we know won't be playing. (Thanks Claude) So I only watch if I need a hockey fix. So just how low will the playoff viewing numbers be. I know some are craving any hockey, but like most HABits, stop it for an extended period and you can mostly break the cycle. I have no interest in watching the habs lose while sitting out at the pool squinting at my phone. It has a fakeness about it that rings hollow to start with.

This is the time that most of us northerners(USA northern states as well) are trying to enjoy the shortness of summer to its fullest extent. I hated playoffs past the long weekend, mostly cause habs were always out. But because that is the canadian start of summer. Wrap up your season its been going on for 9 months, IF you don't include all the PR work that goes into draft and summer long UFA MEGA OVERBLOWN coverage. Honestly we only get August as a month off from hockey. Players as well. Would rather go camping and enjoy a nice canoe ride down a river. Save hockey for our cabin fever, our gloomy darkness, and our shadowy suppers that awaits us in the nearing frostgraves of winter.

I don't miss it right now. I have a lot of projects I finally got started with the pandemic. I just happen to come on to see whats new. I didn't even know about this presser. Hence my near total absence(though some may have rejoiced) on HF for the last 2-3 months.

Sorry got sidetracked about the playoffs. But yeah Molson probably isn't going to replace Marc and his 10 million salary remaining. You will likely eat a whole lot more trying to clean all his crony's out as well. Can't move him like you did with MT to a "scouting position" or other such BS. You know burningbin brings nothing to the table outside of his ability to bully, baffle, and bullshit the media. So he will ride out this shitstorm till at least 2022.

and then you throw in the idea that they're thinking about starting the regular season in January and making it a permanent thing. Thanks but I'll wait till 2022 when hopefully both buffoons are gone from this franchise, if not ain't going to lose sleep no longer watching hockey it's been off long enough now that I'm used to it.

 

[tazsub3]

listening to our idiot team president, and then listening to the raptors president masai ujiji, is a reminder why they won a championship (without a top pick by the way) and why we 27 year and counting removed from ours.

Leaders lead . Ours find excuses.

 

[Fixxer]

I actually agree with Damphousse (though I would rather they bring in a non Hab as i hate to see former Habs get crushed around here, at least the ones I liked when they were Habs) I think the plan to build the team for the future through draft picks makes total sense, my problem has been how they have gone about it. This half in and half out, so we miss out on top 5ish picks over several years, while holding onto vets like Petry, Tatar, imo is a mistake. Add to that just terrible decisions in regards to development and coaching. If the focus is on this plan for the future, then Julien should be following that from the start and not over playing grinders like Weal, Chaput, etc...

If Molson is just going to let Bergevin run all over him, then he has no spine and we need someone that will come in and tell him what to do before he makes these mistakes that have been going on for years. Someone with lots of NHL experience imo.

In a way, I agree too. Also, right after Damphousse talked, Gaston Therrien said one thing I liked. That if they were to put a President in place, it should have been done when Bergevin was hired, not the other way around (because there's pressure now).

Marc was a rookie GM after all. I know he had Rick Dudley to possibly help him a bit. I know Geoff had Serge Savard with him to help pick the "right guy". Bergevin looked great initially. Bought out Gomez. Drafted Galchenyuk. As there was the lockout, Bergie traveled to look at the players he had in hand, in the minors etc.. He travelled with the team for the first portion of the 12-13 season. He was such a breeze of fresh air after Pierre Gauthier.......

His plan to build like Chicago failed. Plan 2 is on it's 2nd year and we'll see how this works out.
The season before Domi came in, some Habs fan were becoming disinterested. Then, 18-19 brought back some passion for the fans. 19-20, Habs are in the 24 teams (where only 7 are left out). At some point, the lack of results is pressing on these 2 guys.

The famous plan of "We want to build from the draft but to also be competitive". ok ? Which leads to the drafting, which has been very patchy or the development was the issue. There was that guy, Jack Han, formerly employed by the Habs who releaese this Habs Headlines: "I think he’s going to have problems" — Jack Han sizes up Ryan Poehling’s development
I believe Bouchard is a good teacher and provides emotions. He's an upgrade on Lefebvre, so let's start from there.

 

[montreal]

In a way, I agree too. Also, right after Damphousse talked, Gaston Therrien said one thing I liked. That if they were to put a President in place, it should have been done when Bergevin was hired, not the other way around (because there's pressure now).

Marc was a rookie GM after all. I know he had Rick Dudley to possibly help him a bit. I know Geoff had Serge Savard with him to help pick the "right guy". Bergevin looked great initially. Bought out Gomez. Drafted Galchenyuk. As there was the lockout, Bergie traveled to look at the players he had in hand, in the minors etc.. He travelled with the team for the first portion of the 12-13 season. He was such a breeze of fresh air after Pierre Gauthier.......

His plan to build like Chicago failed. Plan 2 is on it's 2nd year and we'll see how this works out.
The season before Domi came in, some Habs fan were becoming disinterested. Then, 18-19 brought back some passion for the fans. 19-20, Habs are in the 24 teams (where only 7 are left out). At some point, the lack of results is pressing on these 2 guys.

The famous plan of "We want to build from the draft but to also be competitive". ok ? Which leads to the drafting, which has been very patchy or the development was the issue. There was that guy, Jack Han, formerly employed by the Habs who releaese this Habs Headlines: "I think he’s going to have problems" — Jack Han sizes up Ryan Poehling’s development
I believe Bouchard is a good teacher and provides emotions. He's an upgrade on Lefebvre, so let's start from there.

I don't really know Gaston Therrien other then he doesn't seem to be liked on this board but that is a very good point, the time to have a hockey experienced president was when MB was hired. I just hope at some point enough pressure is put on Molson that he finally steps down and hires a real president, I just hope it doesn't take 8 years.

It's troubling that Domi appears to have had issues with Julien, I was hoping they would fire him but I am interested to see what impact it has on his contract this off-season.

As for Jack Han, I agree with him as I think Poehling is going to have problems and we saw it this year plus how poorly he was handled. You just never should call up a 2o year old center that gets benched in the same week in the AHL because of his defensive play. Imo it underminds the AHL coach, how is he supposed to learn from his mistakes if he gets benched and then days later he's in the NHL making bank and getting to fly around in 1st class getting the royal treatment. I just can't stand MB/Molson/Julien so much and it looks like nothing is going to change there any time soon.

 

[BLONG7]

It basically calls him out and says the world's gone through a pandemic, there have been worldwide protests surrounding racial injustice, he could have made a statement positioning his organization as a thought leader in this space and yet he only chose to discuss what amounted to his insecurities.

Thx
Much appreciated.

 

[mariolemieux66]

With the amount that the Montreal Canadiens hockey team is worth and Molson's other venture and other lucrative investments, we shouldn't be where we are at.
Can't fire Bergevin because he has too many years left on his contract.
Can't fire Julien, because we are still paying Therrien.
Several consecutive season with 7+ millions under the cap.
Not spending enough on scouting and development.
Not having intelligent progressive minds in the organization.
I might be missing some.
My point is that Molson is cheap.
He is making money whether we win or not, so why not taking chance and spending a little bit more money.
We fans deserve it.

 

[montreal]

With the amount that the Montreal Canadiens hockey team is worth and Molson's other venture and other lucrative investments, we shouldn't be where we are at.
Can't fire Bergevin because he has too many years left on his contract.
Can't fire Julien, because we are still paying Therrien.
Several consecutive season with 7+ millions under the cap.
Not spending enough on scouting and development.
Not having intelligent progressive minds in the organization.
I might be missing some.
My point is that Molson is cheap.
He is making money whether we win or not, so why not taking chance and spending a little bit more money.
We fans deserve it.

They are done paying Therrien, his contract ran through last season,

Habs sign Therrien to four-year extension | Montreal Gazette

but agreed on the rest. We'll see what happens after next off-season. Bergevin's and Julien's contract are up after the '21-'22 season so next season is so huge as if we lose some UFA's and stink again the following season it will look bad on Molson if he extends the pair. Going to be very interesting and some hope that maybe the end is not that far away.

 

[Runner77]

Can't fire Bergevin because he has too many years left on his contract.

It got easier on that front, since there are only two years left on his deal:

Montreal Canadiens owner, president and CEO, Geoff Molson, announced today that the Club and executive vice president and general manager Marc Bergevin have agreed to a multi-year contract extension that will keep him with the organization until the end of the 2021-22 season.

Who knows how much of that will be impacted by the pandemic.

Already, Bergevin has agreed to a 20% reduction of his salary this year.

What remains costly are the people he appointed in several senior positions and what it might cost to replace them if a new GM were brought in. Given how Geoff insists on remaining Bergevin's direct overseer, there is no real cost issue at play since it looks like he's buying lock, stock and barrel into Bergevin's current plan.

 

[Monsieur Miz]

First time that I visit this forum in the past 3 months and I see this post.

Really don't give a shit anymore. This is a country club, a bunch of douches giving their friends jobs.

They're going to release a third jersey because apparently that's what fans want. Never heard anyone talk about that but whatever.

It's all about merchandise and profit. f*** those guys and as long as the management core stays the same, f*** this team.

 

[Lshap]

I wasn't a cynic back in the day. I use to be on HabFans I was always happy with Carbo's habs. Loving the comeback kids and listening to CJAD online with my dad on game nights. However there were realists on that board that weren't happy the habs could barely manage to make the playoffs, despite injuries and an actual lack of talent. But the announcing was good, I got excited just being able to listen to games on the regular instead of once a week on french TV, or the few times a year you could catch a non toronto game on TSN in English. Chat about it on a forum.

Anyway I got tired of what I thought was negativity, and a few posters bending over backwards for our young Dman PK something. When we should have traded him and kept that Macdonut kid. Or some other asset. I didn't like PKs D game much and some thought I was a racist for it. Laughable to say the least. I lurked for a while on HFB. Finally registering and making the odd comment till I felt more comfortable posting. Here I later got labeled as a PK fanboy, after the trade. Again not true, just realistic that weber wasn't the holy grail of hockey and we needed different assets to improve the team, which at the time PK could have fetched, or at least been packaged to get.

The main difference is we went from the late 90's early 00's terribleness to a better club. You are hopeful for your team. Maybe this chip guy can be a good 3rd liner and Higgins looks like a future captain. Ribs, Theo solid in their positions. We had Komisarek, Markov and Souray as our top D men.

Habs had a few ups, a few downs. Had an awesome year that was spoiled with injuries when Gainey went balls in with Lang and Tanguay. Cleaned house and got some great vets while leaving a few fan favs hung out to dry. Made the ECF but was a disaster afterwords making that house cleaning look bad.
Gauthier made some bad PR blunders but was working to improve the team in his own way. There were too many holes to patch on the habs, and bad contracts we needed to ditch. Markovless habs look like dog turd, but I was on this board and doing my best to polish this team, because we still had some potential.

Rookies didn't look terrible, Markov coming back gave some hope, getting rid of dud contracts a lot of hope with the open cap space. Crash and burn seasons we might be picking top 5 for the first time in a long while.

New GM...WTF Therrein? Well he will only be here for a year or two while we rebuild. Man this team looks pretty good with that rookie line and we can probably can move Desharnais and a pick for an asset. Made the ECF, new contracts coming up but...6 years all downhill. That leads to a LOT of cynicism. Hard to be an optimist when you are missing the playoffs even with the NHL pulling the mightiest bullshit ever to shoe horn Chi and Montreal into the playoffs.

I now know why the old timers that saw great Hab teams weren't satisfied with how terrible the habs were. Just making the playoffs for them wasn't good enough. Missing the playoffs was horrible. Missing two in a row was unthinkable.

Now I can only remember 3 SCF appearances 86, 89, 93. I am a little too young to have many memories of our cup runs in the lates 70's or earlier. But I do remember the excitement of 86, I remember that at least we lost to a canadian team and was happy for Lanny and Killerin 89. 93 I remember well. My Hab buddies and I would get together for most of the games. However I wish I had watched more with my dad. I doubt he will see their next cup (if ever) now that he is in his 70's. I don't see any of my Hab friends from that time.

We no longer have much to be cheering for, or to make memories about. My stepson and grandson just don't care much about hockey, leaf fans anyway. My son in law likes the leafs a lot, but prefers the NFL and Pats(ugg Boston). My in laws are all fluent in french unlike myself, but somehow leaf fans. So there isn't anyone in my family to share this with once my dad is gone.

The habs have become far too frustrating. Selfish on my part, but I want a few grown up memories with my parents before they die. But it doesn't look like a thing with how this team tip toes around the shallow end of the pool, never making a splash and always wearing waterwings and floatie while trying to contain corporate costs. Risk adverse.

We need to pic a direction and go with it. I don't care if its trading vet for picks, or trading picks for vets. Staying in one spot and hoping for luck isn't working. And our record shows this.

A "Like" doesn't cover how much I enjoyed your post. Beautifully written and heartfelt. I feel like I know you much better.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

It got easier on that front, since there are only two years left on his deal:

Montreal Canadiens owner, president and CEO, Geoff Molson, announced today that the Club and executive vice president and general manager Marc Bergevin have agreed to a multi-year contract extension that will keep him with the organization until the end of the 2021-22 season.

Who knows how much of that will be impacted by the pandemic.

Already, Bergevin has agreed to a 20% reduction of his salary this year.

What remains costly are the people he appointed in several senior positions and what it might cost to replace them if a new GM were brought in. Given how Geoff insists on remaining Bergevin's direct overseer, there is no real cost issue at play since it looks like he's buying lock, stock and barrel into Bergevin's current plan.

You presume it's Bergevin's plan. You presume it's him setting the table. I find it at odds with reality, especially ever since Bergevin admitted "it was important to bring back a Quebecer" when he traded for Drouin. It's never been Bergevin's plan. He's just Molson's figurehead lapdog lackey. It's been the Molson plan, even before Bergevin was here.

The whole narrative of Bergevin manipulating Molson is at odds with several facts. Bergevin can't even coherently describe his plan to anyone. Pillars anyone? How can he even be able to verbally convince his boss? How does this work then? He flexes and Geoff blushes? It's a caricature narrative.

Molson on the other hand, can actually form proper sentences and form a plan. There's much in the proof of this.

Everything that is odd started happening after he arrived.

Never has a player been traded in-game before him. Never has a player had his jersey physically removed from his posession after being traded. I always found extremely odd for Gauthier to do this. Was it really his doing. The jersey removal tells me someone else with history with the crest was involved.

Oddly enough, Gainey stepped down just when Molson was buying the team.

Now I know Gainey lost his daughter, but he still kept going afterwards. For decades I thought MJ retired because of his father's murder, well in fact he wanted to retire before the murder. And with Gainey, he went on for a full year after his daughter died. Only when Molson bought the team is when he left.

There's so much unsaid about his regime, so much we don't know.

 

[eklund the clown]

We shouldn't expect a President of Hockey Ops until the management team is fired. They will not bring one in to suddenly be the bridge between GM and owner. After 8 years of Molson and MB working close together, if Molson brings in a President, then it's kind of saying that he feels MB needs more supervision. And the day he decides that is the day he will no longer trust MB. He won't keep him on board if he doesn't trust him in his work.

So a President of Hockey Ops will only come in if/when he gets rid of MB.

The only good thing about Covid is not having to see Molson and Bergevin's face.

 

[Lshap]

First time that I visit this forum in the past 3 months and I see this post.

Really don't give a shit anymore. This is a country club, a bunch of douches giving their friends jobs.

They're going to release a third jersey because apparently that's what fans want. Never heard anyone talk about that but whatever.

It's all about merchandise and profit. f*** those guys and as long as the management core stays the same, f*** this team.

The sad reality is that we -- the hockey nerds who discuss & analyze the team -- are not the org's priority. Their top priority will always be putting on a show for the fans who buy tickets, buy merch for their kids, and buy $12 beer at the Bell Centre. Those people are the real customers, and they want to see a fun night out with a decent chance at winning the game. It's not fun watching a rebuilding team with little chance of competing. It's not fun when the best talent is in the AHL or in the next draft. Sure, trading Petry and Tatar could've gotten us a couple of awesome picks, but Petry and Tatar sell more tickets right now than picks.

Fans aren't stupid. They want to see the team contend, just like we do. But it's an abstract wish. They'll put their faith in hope and luck rather than a long-term plan, because, honestly, fans don't pay money to watch a long-term plan.

 

[Runner77]

There's so much unsaid about his regime, so much we don't know.

We’re a third hand regurgitation site with no investigative contacts and no budget. We’re all making assumptions to a large extent. Whether it’s Geoff or Bergevin or both, we generally agree that it’s a failed plan and that both actors no matter the extent of their decision-making, have failed and are likely to fail again.

That’s the bottom line.

Even if it were established with incontrovertible evidence that the failed plan were 100% on Geoff, could a credible argument be made that Bergevin can be trusted moving forward if Geoff were forever removed from hockey ops? I’m not convinced.

 

[The Real Timo]

We’re a third hand regurgitation site with no investigative contacts and no budget. We’re all making assumptions to a large extent. Whether it’s Geoff or Bergevin or both, we generally agree that it’s a failed plan and that both actors no matter the extent of their decision-making, have failed and are likely to fail again.

That’s the bottom line.

Even if it were established with incontrovertible evidence that the failed plan were 100% on Geoff, could a credible argument be made that Bergevin could be trusted moving forward if Geoff were forever removed from hockey ops? I’m not convinced.

WHAT??!?! You mean not everything that is being said on here is a fact? Sigh... I've been mislead.

 

[BLONG7]

The sad reality is that we -- the hockey nerds who discuss & analyze the team -- are not the org's priority. Their top priority will always be putting on a show for the fans who buy tickets, buy merch for their kids, and buy $12 beer at the Bell Centre. Those people are the real customers, and they want to see a fun night out with a decent chance at winning the game. It's not fun watching a rebuilding team with little chance of competing. It's not fun when the best talent is in the AHL or in the next draft. Sure, trading Petry and Tatar could've gotten us a couple of awesome picks, but Petry and Tatar sell more tickets right now than picks.

Fans aren't stupid. They want to see the team contend, just like we do. But it's an abstract wish. They'll put their faith in hope and luck rather than a long-term plan, because, honestly, fans don't pay money to watch a long-term plan.

Pro sports are about results............at some point even the sheep are going to have a heart to heart with themselves. I have been a fan for over 50 years, but I am not stupid...Mol$on has and is failing day in day out.
The FANS deserve better.

 

[Runner77]

WHAT??!?! You mean not everything that is being said on here is a fact? Sigh... I've been mislead.

Beware the electronically printed word.

 

[nhlfan9191]

All I can tell you is there will be no Cup in the near future for this group. I’d venture 6-10 years if we either change ownership or Molson gets his act together.

6-10 years is we get our act together? I’m willing to bet it will be ALOT longer that. We have to break a language barrier that will likely take longer then that on top of actually building a good team in 32 team league. Molson can’t fire himself or walk away as owner so we also have that as well. We’re screwed.

 

[peate]

Pro sports are about results............at some point even the sheep are going to have a heart to heart with themselves. I have been a fan for over 50 years, but I am not stupid...Mol$on has and is failing day in day out.
The FANS deserve better.

You also have lived through many cup winning teams. We're at a point where the team was just before the Rocket emerged. They were losing more than winning, except then, they were in financial trouble. We need that superstar local boy to rekindle the passion we all had and is sorely lacking in today's management team. 27 years? That's ridiculous for this franchise.

 

[BLONG7]

You also have lived through many cup winning teams. We're at a point where the team was just before the Rocket emerged. They were losing more than winning, except then, they were in financial trouble. We need that superstar local boy to rekindle the passion we all had and is sorely lacking in today's management team. 27 years? That's ridiculous for this franchise.

Even a local boy couldn't do it, with this clown show Mol$on and MB are running.
We are doomed, until Mol$on grows a set, of sells the team. Doomed...

 

[OldCraig71]

I wasn't a cynic back in the day. I use to be on HabFans I was always happy with Carbo's habs. Loving the comeback kids and listening to CJAD online with my dad on game nights. However there were realists on that board that weren't happy the habs could barely manage to make the playoffs, despite injuries and an actual lack of talent. But the announcing was good, I got excited just being able to listen to games on the regular instead of once a week on french TV, or the few times a year you could catch a non toronto game on TSN in English. Chat about it on a forum.

Anyway I got tired of what I thought was negativity, and a few posters bending over backwards for our young Dman PK something. When we should have traded him and kept that Macdonut kid. Or some other asset. I didn't like PKs D game much and some thought I was a racist for it. Laughable to say the least. I lurked for a while on HFB. Finally registering and making the odd comment till I felt more comfortable posting. Here I later got labeled as a PK fanboy, after the trade. Again not true, just realistic that weber wasn't the holy grail of hockey and we needed different assets to improve the team, which at the time PK could have fetched, or at least been packaged to get.

The main difference is we went from the late 90's early 00's terribleness to a better club. You are hopeful for your team. Maybe this chip guy can be a good 3rd liner and Higgins looks like a future captain. Ribs, Theo solid in their positions. We had Komisarek, Markov and Souray as our top D men.

Habs had a few ups, a few downs. Had an awesome year that was spoiled with injuries when Gainey went balls in with Lang and Tanguay. Cleaned house and got some great vets while leaving a few fan favs hung out to dry. Made the ECF but was a disaster afterwords making that house cleaning look bad.
Gauthier made some bad PR blunders but was working to improve the team in his own way. There were too many holes to patch on the habs, and bad contracts we needed to ditch. Markovless habs look like dog turd, but I was on this board and doing my best to polish this team, because we still had some potential.

Rookies didn't look terrible, Markov coming back gave some hope, getting rid of dud contracts a lot of hope with the open cap space. Crash and burn seasons we might be picking top 5 for the first time in a long while.

New GM...WTF Therrein? Well he will only be here for a year or two while we rebuild. Man this team looks pretty good with that rookie line and we can probably can move Desharnais and a pick for an asset. Made the ECF, new contracts coming up but...6 years all downhill. That leads to a LOT of cynicism. Hard to be an optimist when you are missing the playoffs even with the NHL pulling the mightiest bullshit ever to shoe horn Chi and Montreal into the playoffs.

I now know why the old timers that saw great Hab teams weren't satisfied with how terrible the habs were. Just making the playoffs for them wasn't good enough. Missing the playoffs was horrible. Missing two in a row was unthinkable.

Now I can only remember 3 SCF appearances 86, 89, 93. I am a little too young to have many memories of our cup runs in the lates 70's or earlier. But I do remember the excitement of 86, I remember that at least we lost to a canadian team and was happy for Lanny and Killerin 89. 93 I remember well. My Hab buddies and I would get together for most of the games. However I wish I had watched more with my dad. I doubt he will see their next cup (if ever) now that he is in his 70's. I don't see any of my Hab friends from that time.

We no longer have much to be cheering for, or to make memories about. My stepson and grandson just don't care much about hockey, leaf fans anyway. My son in law likes the leafs a lot, but prefers the NFL and Pats(ugg Boston). My in laws are all fluent in french unlike myself, but somehow leaf fans. So there isn't anyone in my family to share this with once my dad is gone.

The habs have become far too frustrating. Selfish on my part, but I want a few grown up memories with my parents before they die. But it doesn't look like a thing with how this team tip toes around the shallow end of the pool, never making a splash and always wearing waterwings and floatie while trying to contain corporate costs. Risk adverse.

We need to pic a direction and go with it. I don't care if its trading vet for picks, or trading picks for vets. Staying in one spot and hoping for luck isn't working. And our record shows this.

Beautifully written and I think that it is safe to say that what you wrote represents the feelings of the majority of habs fans here, especially the over 35 crowd. Great post!

 

[Omar]

It was either.. the start of a new era... or the beginning of the end... you choose.

I don’t know whether to call them Ren and Stimpy or Itchy and Scratchy

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

So...

Can we somehow fire Molson?

 

[peate]

I don’t know whether to call them Ren and Stimpy or Itchy and Scratchy

The Odd Couple.