Marc Bergevin (Part 12) Deadline Edition

[sampollock]

tony on 690 going off on how small the habs are, what a shocker....pushed around last night

tony say's too many of the same guy, domi, byron, gally, JD, Suzuki, lecky, cousins, weal, and now Caulfield,

he is right cant have 3 lines made up of these sized players, Tony says 4 of these guys is enough, one on each line,

 

[Patccmoi]

But the overall thing here is this....how the heck are we where we are if our GM is just the best at making trades? Maybe the steals and the wins are not THAT great after all?

This is definitely the part that boggles my mind the most with people defending how good Bergevin is based on his trade record. If he's THAT great at making trades, and the team is THAT bad, he must be freaking aweful at everything else, because he did not start from a bad position at all. He started with a Norris winner, a Vezina winner, a 3rd overall pick and a winger that was going to be top 5 in total goals over many seasons. The team was not perfect, but it was competitive and had key pieces, was mainly just missing a top center to be a serious contender.

But it really boils down to no vision. All his trades, with the exception probably of Danault and Pacioretty, are replacement trades. He creates a hole somewhere or replaces a player that either got traded or was falling off. It's trades that allow the team not to just become significantly worse than it was before, but they do not improve compared to how the team already was. Signing Radulov to 8M per season and keeping Sergachev would have been FAR better for the team than trading for Drouin. We would have a much better Left D with same quality (if not better) wing. So it doesn't even matter if you consider the trade a win, or a wash when looking at it player for player. In the end, it's a move that made the team worse.

Domi vs Galchenyuk and Weber vs Subban might be good trades if you compare how both players involved in the trade perform currently. But Subban before getting traded was as good for the Habs as Weber ever was, and Galchenyuk wasn't much different than this year's Domi. This year's Domi is better than this year's Galchenyuk, and this year's Weber is better than this year's Subban, great, but the team didn't improve as a result of those trades, it just didn't get worse.

Improving a team isn't winning 1 for 1 trades in a vacuum. It requires adding to the overall quality of your roster, knowing that some of that quality will go down and some will go up in the future on its own depending on the age of the players involved. Trading players going downhill for players trending up is definitely something you want to do, but it doesn't mean that your team improved in itself, it just prevents it from degrading.

Bergevin showed he can trade well enough to maintain a team in mediocrity and not fall off all the way to the bottom of the league like the Red Wings did. But the team has been gradually getting worse over his tenure, meaning he's just aweful at other things necessary to build a contender. Stop defending his trades in a vacuum and just look at the big picture, the team is clearly not better with him at the helm for so long.

 

[Whitesnake]

The lengths people will go to discredit Danault lmao.

He replaced Plekanec? Sure. I guess you forgot how trash Plekanec was during his final years in Montreal. Danault isn't a scrub, he's one of the best defensive forwards and a ~50 point forward.

Well you probably saw a couple of posts of me defending Danault and bashing posters who just disrespect him for various reasons. But....Kriss E is not that far off. The idea here is to improve. To solidly improve. If the only thing you do is replace what was there before, it's a status quo in our improvement. Danault is a very good player. But in the end, there are NO trades in that list that improved us 'cause if it would, we would have seen it in the standings.

 

[MaxDummy]

You can "win" all of your trades and still be an awful GM...

A good GM will pay the price to get what he wants, even if it can seem steep. He will pay if he thinks it can improve his team.

2 second round picks seemed steep to pay for Eller. But Eller was a really important piece for the Caps Cup run.

 

[Andy]

The problem isn't size. It's talent.

The habs don't have any player close to the talent level of Marchand, Bergeron, Krejci and Pasternak. It really is just that simple.

That's why everyone is gushing over an aging Kovalchuk because even at the end of his career, he's displayed more talent than any forward since Kovalev.

 

[Whitesnake]

"Of course, I'd like it to be better. I'm always trying to get better ... trying to make the team better. Would i have like more trips to the playoffs? Of course, but i believe we're set up for that for the long-term now."

there isn't a question that's going to throw him off his narrative. why? because he doesn't care if he answers it.

I have one for him. When will you start finding this unacceptable? What does it take to find the status of your team to be unacceptable? 5 years of not making the playoffs while being completely healthy every year?

 

[waffledave]

The problem isn't size. It's talent.

The habs don't have any player close to the talent level of Marchand, Bergeron, Krejci and Pasternak. It really is just that simple.

That's why everyone is gushing over an aging Kovalchuk because even at the end of his career, he's displayed more talent than any forward since Kovalev.

It's both. The lack of size is a big problem.

 

[Andy]

It's both. The lack of size is a big problem.

No, it's not. Marchand is tiny and Krejci and Pasternak do not play big at all. They comprise 3 players of their top 6 and they toy with the habs with their talent. Same thing with Tory Krug.

The habs can't compete because they don't have high end skill. FFS, the Bruins might have two 100 point players this year. We haven't a single 80 point player since Kovalev. When was the last time someone even scored 40 goals?

 

[Whitesnake]

The problem isn't size. It's talent.

The habs don't have any player close to the talent level of Marchand, Bergeron, Krejci and Pasternak. It really is just that simple.

That's why everyone is gushing over an aging Kovalchuk because even at the end of his career, he's displayed more talent than any forward since Kovalev.

It's a mix of both. Not enough talent. But not enough size either. And CLEARLY not enough talent WITH size.

 

[Tuggy]

No, it's not. Marchand is tiny and Krejci and Pasternak do not play big at all. They comprise 3 players of their top 6 and they toy with the habs with their talent. Same thing with Tory Krug.

The habs can't compete because they don't have high end skill.

Had that conversation with a Bruins fan here at work this morning. The Habs generate a lot of shots/attempts/chances but they don't have someone like Pasternak who is skilled enough to finish them on a regular basis.

 

[HuGo Sham]

compared to Bruins, it's simple.
-They have an elite line, with 2 elite wingers and a selke level C
-much better d, that can survive injuries because of quality depth
-a terrific backup goalie to spell the no.1 Rask
-a good, but ageing no.2 C
-depth that is (arguably) worse than habs 4 through 9 BUT they have size and structure - something habs do not.
There are no perfect NHL teams in a salary-capped league, but habs lack these foundational pieces right now.

We have no game-breakers in our F group - boston has 2
Their D is beyond anything we have after Weber
they have Halak - a position bargain bin has NEVER been able to figure out
they have size in their 2-4 lines which allow them to lock teams down or grind them out
if the big 3 aren't scoring. Yes they have Debrusk, Krecji and Coyle - habs can match that
but not in games that also require lots of physicality and limited scoring chances

 

[Andy]

Had that conversation with a Bruins fan here at work this morning. The Habs generate a lot of shots/attempts/chances but they don't have someone like Pasternak who is skilled enough to finish them on a regular basis.

Or even Marchand. Both might hit 100 points this year.

Meanwhile we're trying to make ourselves feel better about winning trades.

 

[Hins77]

You can "win" all of your trades and still be an awful GM...

A good GM will pay the price to get what he wants, even if it can seem steep. He will pay if he thinks it can improve his team.

2 second round picks seemed steep to pay for Eller. But Eller was a really important piece for the Caps Cup run.

I dont have any statistiic. But when a team pay with picks or prospect. Its rare that they finally got screewed. Ok there is mcdonagh/forsberg type of trade but its rare. Lets see. Andrew ladd back in the days for dano/rubstov? Where are they right now? Andrew ladd was at his peak of career. Mcdo and jt miller for hajek/howden/1st pick/namestnikov. Where are they? Thats litteraly a top 2 dman and top 6 winger for scrap. Eric staal got traded to NY for sarela? Who is this? I could do it this exercice during all day long. I want to show that MB is in love with is depth chart and take no risk to improve his team. Thats insane. He has to improve it. We are losing prospect cause they don’t grow. josh brook is the next of that list. So basically. Draft pick/prospect should be a gift to a GM. Not the main strucure of your buisness. Bergevin use it to build his team. Thats why we are in deep trouble

 

[sampollock]

It's both. The lack of size is a big problem.

100% agree

they are running to many small guys, even if you had 6 small guys with talent, you need true balance,
only balance there is that MB can walk without falling over

 

[Techcoockie]

I'm so pissed off that this idiot GM is still in post and seems to not f***ing fear anything.



f***ing ridiculous

 

[Kriss E]

"Of course, I'd like it to be better. I'm always trying to get better ... trying to make the team better. Would i have like more trips to the playoffs? Of course, but i believe we're set up for that for the long-term now."

there isn't a question that's going to throw him off his narrative. why? because he doesn't care if he answers it.

Sorry to press you on this but you're dodging the question, fact remains you say every year the objective is to make the POs, it's now 4/5 years of missing them so you failed to reach your objective 4/5 years, how can you justify this?

 

[Archijerej]

But the overall thing here is this....how the heck are we where we are if our GM is just the best at making trades? Maybe the steals and the wins are not THAT great after all?

This has been explained already. Bergevin's trading allows us to maintain a bubble team status, but it's not enough to compensate for our drafting and development. I think people don't quite realise just how monumentally bad our drafting and development is. We'd be an absolute laughing stock of the league if we relied on on D&D for roster building. And I don't mean it as a defense of Bergevin. The person responsible has seen nothing but promotions during MB's tenure.

The other thing is that trades don't happen in a vacuum. You can get good value from most individual trades, but that doesn't mean building a cohesive group. We have one excellent line and a bunch of guys that make us wonder how the hell are we supposed to utilize them to maximize their talents.

 

[Kriss E]

The lengths people will go to discredit Danault lmao.

He replaced Plekanec? Sure. I guess you forgot how trash Plekanec was during his final years in Montreal. Danault isn't a scrub, he's one of the best defensive forwards and a ~50 point forward.

I mean, I specifically mentioned how I'm talking about the earlier years under Bergevin when Plekanec was 50~60 pt player. He wasnt a scrub from 12-16 either.
I'm not discrediting Danault, even said it was a great trade.
Not sure why you're so butthurt about my comments on him.

 

[Ozmodiar]

I have one for him. When will you start finding this unacceptable? What does it take to find the status of your team to be unacceptable? 5 years of not making the playoffs while being completely healthy every year?

"missing the playoffs is never acceptable. neither is losing. For me, i like to win, so it's not acceptable. You could see that the team is the same way. The way we played when everyone said we were out of the playoffs, then when Weber was hurt ... they don't like to lose. they're fighters."

there isn't a question that will rattle him.

the only way to make him stumble ... maybe .... would be to bait him into one of his predictable answers, then follow-up with fact.

q: what's the single biggest reason for missing playoffs for 4 years
a: (predictably) i'd say injuries (if he doesn't completely dodge)
q: how does that reconcile withe the fact they were 23rd (made up #) in man games lost over that period.

the problem with the journalists ... the never question the answers they receive ... if they have a 2nd question, it's prepared.

 

[MaxDummy]

I dont have any statistiic. But when a team pay with picks or prospect. Its rare that they finally got screewed

Andrew Shaw for 2 2nd round pick (Debrincat and Girard maybe?)

 

[waffledave]

No, it's not. Marchand is tiny and Krejci and Pasternak do not play big at all. They comprise 3 players of their top 6 and they toy with the habs with their talent. Same thing with Tory Krug.

The habs can't compete because they don't have high end skill. FFS, the Bruins might have two 100 point players this year. We haven't a single 80 point player since Kovalev. When was the last time someone even scored 40 goals?

Their D is pretty big and they most important play big. Elite talent can help but ultimately we don't have size OR talent, and size is easier to address.

 

[Habs13]

No, it's not. Marchand is tiny and Krejci and Pasternak do not play big at all. They comprise 3 players of their top 6 and they toy with the habs with their talent. Same thing with Tory Krug.

The habs can't compete because they don't have high end skill. FFS, the Bruins might have two 100 point players this year. We haven't a single 80 point player since Kovalev. When was the last time someone even scored 40 goals?

How many Bruins did you name? Yeah, cool, they have small talented guys. This is true. Now lets talk about the rest of the team. Are they like Purple's Habs? Are they ALL tiny humans? We are. Even our "big" guys are small. Do you see how badly this team needs a Charlie Coyle or... six? Maybe a Zach Kassian or two.

 

[Habs13]

100% agree

they are running to many small guys, even if you had 6 small guys with talent, you need true balance,
only balance there is that MB can walk without falling over

Hell, we have a GM that is obsessed with bottom line guys and STILL can't find guys with size to fill those spots. Still pulls in undersized guys onto an undersized squad. If you want to grind, get guys that can... grrrriiiiinnn doze guy!

 

[Andy]

Their D is pretty big and they most important play big. Elite talent can help but ultimately we don't have size OR talent, and size is easier to address.

The habs aren't any more competitive if the players on the roster than are currently under 6 feet were all over 6 feet.

Mete, Tatar, Domi, Suzuki, Gallagher, Cousins and Weal don't suddenly become stars and gamebreakers due to a couple of more inches.

 

[Ozmodiar]

Sorry to press you on this but you're dodging the question, fact remains you say every year the objective is to make the POs, it's now 4/5 years of missing them so you failed to reach your objective 4/5 years, how can you justify this?

"of course, the objective is to make the playoffs ... but also, our objective is to get better every year. we're confident that we're doing that. we like our leadership, we're one of the youngest teams in the league, we have good prospects, the players in the room believe in each other. would i like to have more appearances? yes, ... but i like our future, for sure."