Marc Bergevin Appreciation Thread

[nhlfan9191]

Points don't tell the whole story. Nothing compares to the abysmal hopelessness of the late-90s/early-00s. We made the freaking Stanley Cup Final under Bergevin, something that wouldn't happen in the late-90s/early-00s even in our wildest dreams. Stop mathematizing reality away...

The abysmal hopelessness of the late 90’s/early 2000’s is no different than what we felt from 2017-2020. We were in the middle of nowhere with no water for four seasons. A flukey couple of pandemic seasons doesn’t help boost Bergevin’s image. He was brutal his last 5 years here.

 

[Ezpz]

Except for Suzuki, would Timmins not get credit for something that is the amateur scouting departments job? Bergy was always careful to say he didn't make the final say on draft matters.

And Bergy wanted Glass over Nick.

Look at Bergevin's actual job in roster signings and cap management and you'll see a D- job. The amount of assets Hughes has acquired in under a year is comparable to five years of Bergy trades and drafts. Dach, three first rounders, Monahan and what looks to be the best D+1 year in my memory. The first six picks look to have real NHL potential, with the first four already looking like locks.

 

[Lebowski]

Bergevin left the team under no better condition than the team he inherited ten years ago.

Between his arrival and his departure, there was no meaningful progress towards building a contending roster. It was a bottom feeder when he arrived, and still a bottom feeder when he left.

Obviously, the current young core mostly has Bergevin's stamp on it... Did you expect a complete roster turnover within a year of new management?

 

[Nedved]

A total meathead. I love to complain about management and coaching when it comes to the habs, not much to complain about so far with this management team. Hated the Slafkovsky pick and trading Romanov, but honestly Slaf looks like he'll be at least a consistent 20 goal player and seems like he is built for the playoffs, and Dach is a 1st line winger with Caufield and Suzuki.

MB left a lot to complain about and we are still watching it today.

 

[HuGort]

Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj, Jordan Harris, all the core youngsters other than Juraj Slafkovsky have been acquired by the Maestro.

We have a lot of great prospects, not the least Logan Mailloux, who was courageously picked by Bergevin amidst controversial waters.

It's time to cut the shit. It's been almost a year, and hating on Marc has no meaning or purpose any longer. Give the man his due. Almost everything exciting about the Habs right now are due to decisions taken under his reign. It's the truth and you know it.

Hughes and Gorton have done a pretty good job so far, but they're getting a lot of credit that belongs to MB.

He got them to Finals without sacrificing any prospects nor draft picks. Quite an achievement. Has his fingers prints all over these young players .

 

[the]

Worst GM in Habs history, good riddance.

 

[Hins77]

He got them to Finals without sacrificing any prospects nor draft picks. Quite an achievement. Has his fingers prints all over these young players .

Sometimes you need to sacrifice futures/prospect to win stanley cup. Look at tampa bay, they trade every first round pick and they won the cup

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

Worst GM in Habs history, good riddance.

Houle was the very worst. By a mile.

 

[the]

Houle was the very worst. By a mile.

Houle was restricted/limited in resources. Bergevin had carte blanche.

 

[beowulf]

So you are going to completely ignore the record setting man games lost seasons but use the Covid angle to support your bias.....ok?

He was a 3 time runner up to the Jim Gregory award, had a Conference final and Stanley Cup final and was runner up to the President's trophy once and you think there is a comparison to be made with the Houle era....????

There were some great highs and some bad lows but to ignore the highs and focus on the lows despite record setting injury seasons and a star goalie ranked near the bottom for starting goaltenders for six consecutive seasons due to injuries and substance abuse seems a little biased.

I am not defending Bergevin as some kind of savant I am just stating the facts that clearly support categorizing him as no worse than average.

The amount of venom directed at the guy seems to come from the same ideologies that spawn right wing conspiracy theories. I think some of you need to look around the league at other GM's and their resumes before crowning MB as a below average buffoon.

I am personally glad that he is gone but I am also grounding my opinion in facts and reason as a franchise like the Habs should have the very best at the helm and MB clearly was not that and average isn't good enough for this market.

Gawd again so wrong about Price....give it up and bringing substane abuse into this is a new low, Ohh and it's your boy Bergevin who gave Price the insane contract, not someone else. Just like he gave bad contracts to Subban and Gallagher and Alzner and and etc.

From 2015-16 to 2020-21 when the made the finals, so last 6 years he was goalie with Bergevin, he had a 137-104-24 record a 2.77gaa and a .913 save% for a team that often could not score and had massive holes in it's defence.

Even more hilarious that you somehow make this insane leap to comparing this to the ring-wing conspiracies...hilarious.

Did he make some good moves, yes are a lot of us applauded when he did. But he made far more bad moves, made bad decisions and then tried to cover them by blaming others and not himself.

I really liked the Petry move, one of the few that likes it from the start for example. But moves like that were nullified by not giving Markov 2 years and acting like an arse and instead signing a broken Alzner, everyone know he had wrist issues, and tried bringing Streit back which did not last long. This 2 errors just pilled onto and made the error of given away Markov's likely replacement on d to Tampa for Drouin who already had questions marks about his commitment which is why Tampa was all too happy to unload him. Then trying to play Drouin at center...ouch.

No, Bergevin was not average but well below average and is likely the second worst GM in the teams history.

Houle was restricted/limited in resources. Bergevin had carte blanche.

This is true, and Houle had been out of the game for years and was working as a beer executive and should never have been made GM. Bergevin had the experience of being assistant GM in Chicago etc. which make him look worse at times.

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

Houle was restricted/limited in resources. Bergevin had carte blanche.

That can be debatable. I don't think P. Roy was traded because of restricted resources. Damphousse was traded for almost nothing and was replaced by Linden. Scott Thornton was traded for Juha Lind, etc. Where is the limited resource there? The drafting was bad as hell under Houle's era.

But I'm not interrested debating about two bad gms that are challenging the very bottom low. It's like if I own binoculars and they work only looking at high mountains and not caves. I let the debate of bad gms for others.

 

[kyne]

Houle was restricted/limited in resources. Bergevin had carte blanche.

In the end Houle was starting to improve and he was learning how to be a good GM. I think some of Bergevin's successes early in his tenure created the opposite effect when he started to believe his own press.

 

[The Real Timo]

Just stumbled upon this thread... wow... Appreciation for Bergevin. Talk about a whooper of an oxymoron.

 

[JianYang]

The abysmal hopelessness of the late 90’s/early 2000’s is no different than what we felt from 2017-2020. We were in the middle of nowhere with no water for four seasons. A flukey couple of pandemic seasons doesn’t help boost Bergevin’s image. He was brutal his last 5 years here.

It was way more hopeless in the late 90s/early 2000s because there were no names on the roster with brand value anymore. After damphousse left, it was basically hoping for koivu to become a superstar and he was mostly hurt in those years.

Additionally, the Habs were no longer competitive from a payroll standpoint, and it wasn't just because the on ice talent level was low. There were economic factors at play that was were hitting every Canadian team hard not named Toronto. The team also went up for sale and no local person wanted to buy. They were also paying astronomical municipal taxes at the time.... Something like 12 million a year.

So when you combine the on ice and off ice turbulence, there's no doubt that was the darkest period.

 

[Redux91]

Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj, Jordan Harris, all the core youngsters other than Juraj Slafkovsky have been acquired by the Maestro.

We have a lot of great prospects, not the least Logan Mailloux, who was courageously picked by Bergevin amidst controversial waters.

It's time to cut the shit. It's been almost a year, and hating on Marc has no meaning or purpose any longer. Give the man his due. Almost everything exciting about the Habs right now are due to decisions taken under his reign. It's the truth and you know it.

Hughes and Gorton have done a pretty good job so far, but they're getting a lot of credit that belongs to MB.

Ok but how is this not Trolling?

I mean.. what's your overall goal here.. because it's not to give Bergevin props lol

 

[Frank JT]

Houle was restricted/limited in resources. Bergevin had carte blanche.

I don't think so. Molson didn't alowed him to tank. Bergevin had to try to makes the playoffs every years. Worst philosophy you can have in hockey if your team is in the middle of the pack.
That being said, I'm so happy to see the changes made buy the organisation and the work from Hughes an Gorton.

 

[EXPOS123]

I hear he is doing good things in LA. Has the coffee orders down pat and I understand he is working hard memorizing doughnut and cookie preferences.

And he’s having an easier time finding colorful, hip suits since LA is a way more fashionable place

 

[EXPOS123]

And he’s having an easier type finding colorful, hip suits since LA is a way more fashionable place

Dude, stop it.

The drafting was shit for years and it started getting better after the front office remix in the summer of 2018, which probably gave more leeway to Timmins and the rest of the drafting department. No more dumbass priority given to size and truculence. The drafting philosophy changed and am pretty certain Bergevin wasn't responsible for the new philosophy.

And on top of that, got lucky as hell, wanting Glass, but getting Suzuki, and Caufield falling on their lap.

Your gatekeeping won't work.

Bergevin's legacy is the worst sequence in Habs history, bar none.

I appreciate what that moron did.

He drove this franchise so badly into the ground that we finally had no choice but to do the full blown rebuild we’ve always wanted.

 

[NORiculous]

Houle was restricted/limited in resources. Bergevin had carte blanche.

The restriction doesn’t matter.

When a GM trades good players and get nothing of value for them, no good prospects, you suck.

MB was bad but even MB wasn’t that bad.


Give Gorton those same restrictions and he will build a massive base of young talent.

 

[akratique]

Houle was the very worst. By a mile.

Grundman basically destroyed the Habs of the 70's by playing hardball with Lemaire (causing him to leave for Switzerland) and picking Wickenheiser instead of Savard. Also, the fact he was named GM caused Bowman to leave. It all unraveled from there. All in two years.

He was also arrested for fraud later on, but that's another story.

 

[Nicko999]

Puke... I will never give him credit for anything. He traded our best asset for Suzuki so the least he could do is get a good return and Caufield is the first good pick since 2007.
Guys like Xhekaj and Harris, you literally have thousands of those in the NHL. They are good but not special.

This clown was the worst the Habs had ever seen. He inherited a loaded team that was a piece and a half from a Cup contender and proceeded to destroy it completely to the worst Habs team in history.

 

[HuGo Sham]

Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj, Jordan Harris, all the core youngsters other than Juraj Slafkovsky have been acquired by the Maestro.

We have a lot of great prospects, not the least Logan Mailloux, who was courageously picked by Bergevin amidst controversial waters.

It's time to cut the shit. It's been almost a year, and hating on Marc has no meaning or purpose any longer. Give the man his due. Almost everything exciting about the Habs right now are due to decisions taken under his reign. It's the truth and you know it.

Hughes and Gorton have done a pretty good job so far, but they're getting a lot of credit that belongs to MB.

Marc that you?

I give him some of the credit for sure BUT
-mailloux pick at the time with what was already going on with team was awful
-it also doesn't diminish the terrible, myopic , throw-shit-against-the-wall and see if it sticks vision he had for a decade
-destroyed CP31 by NEVER finding him a competent backup till it was too late
-terrible player development
-Drouin trade (yes he made great ones too)
-love affair with trading for and claiming plugs
-signing vets for what they had done, not for what they were going to do (gallagher etc)

and on and on

 

[BLONG7]

That can be debatable. I don't think P. Roy was traded because of restricted resources. Damphousse was traded for almost nothing and was replaced by Linden. Scott Thornton was traded for Juha Lind, etc. Where is the limited resource there? The drafting was bad as hell under Houle's era.

But I'm not interrested debating about two bad gms that are challenging the very bottom low. It's like if I own binoculars and they work only looking at high mountains and not caves. I let the debate of bad gms for others.

Reggie Houle was a puppet, for Mr Corey.............he ran the team into nothing.....
Bergevin ws given a ton of money to run his team into the ground......he is a donkey

Gimme good guy Reggie Houle any day over the donkey. Bergevin's flaws, had flaws.......he was brutal.
Did he make some nice moves, of course.....he himself said the Draft was like Darts......throw one at the board and who knows.....make da playoff, and who knows....................I think you can see where some of us are coming from.

Anyhow, better days ahead. HuGo are setting the course for some good days ahead.

 

[DAChampion]

I appreciate Bergevin declining Molson's offer of a contract extension.

 

[sandviper]

He was here for 10 years and burned an incredible core that he inherited. Hughes and Gorton will spend a lot of time trying to get a top goalie and a true #1 defenseman. Bergevin had Price and Subban, Markov.. on top of Plekanec, Pacioretty, the 3rd overall pick, Gallagher etc.

In one year we've seen competence. They've acquired more 1st round picks, got Dach, their first draft looks like it will be better than any single draft under Bergevin. They hired a smart coach. Development and analytics teams.

The proper reaction should be anger that we took so long to remove an incompetent vision less dinosaur.

You touched on it in your second paragraph but we focus on the players and trades but it was also Bergy who hired the coaches that really hampered development.

”But oh no, it was the amateur and pro scouts!”

Well, guess who hired and managed that staff?

Anyhow, whatever, I can sit here and be angry but we’re moving in the right direction across the organization now. Will it pay off? Who knows, but it’s long overdue for all the changes we’ve done organization-wise. Even if HuGo aren’t successful, I hope they continue this direction.