Exactly what I have been saying.
Bergevin had all the cap space in the world and a mandate to win, and was basically given a team where he had to add two ingredients to consistently compete for a cup.
And he couldn't do it.
Wasn’t just his roster building that i judge him by. It was his coaching decisions first and foremost. There were red flags the moment he hired Michel Therrien for me. He had a star dman on the verge of becoming elite and he hires a guy who was bashing him on TV. Got a make him a better person and all that jazz. From that moment, I already questioned his judgement. Then the doubling down, foxhole buddy horseshit.
Every year all he did was try to lower expectations. It’s a transition year, he must have used this one for 6-7 years. He was building through the draft, but never added any additional first round picks. No direction, no plan, exactly what you’d expect from a former borderline NHLer with no education.
Trade for Drouin, but then let Marky and Radulov go, then declare Drouin your number 1 center. What a f***ing mess, lost his entire left side on one off season and replaced Markov, Emelin, Beaulieu with Alzner, Streit and Schlemko and then had the nerve to say this d is better than last years. He was a train wreck.
Above all else, he was completely unlikable. I’ve been watching the Habs since I was a very small child. Complete games at 5-6 years old. I used to make a deal with my mom that if I took a nap earlier in the evening she would let me stay up for the game. In over 40 years of watching the Habs that was the only stretch of time where I became completely disinterested. The product was terrible on the ice and there wasn’t even anything to be hopeful of because you knew the man in charge was lost. Now we’re a bad team, but fun to watch and a GM with a plan and competence. I’m excited about the team again and I didn’t know if that would ever come back.