My point is that your rationale gives off major 'Everything will go great/better for us and remain the same for everyone else' vibes which is pretty much what would require to happen for us to leap up the standings as much as you think.
Except, I've never stated that. Seems you're reading into my words what you want to hear...
And no, it will not require "everything to go right for us and remain the same for the others" for us to stay in the WC chase longer than last year. That's a overly pessimistic outlook on our roster relative to the rosters of the teams that missed the POs last year, for reasons I've already outlined.
To think Monahan/Newhook alone would have caused that jump last year is nuts.
Lol. Did you not follow the team last year?
We were 2 games over .500 at Xmas in case you forgot.
It's great that the Habs were a little more competitive earlier on in the year but Monahan alone isn't changing the standings that much. Not many players would, not Laine either. The point of acquiring Laine - to me at least - is just to improve your chances but more than anything, to give the young players a really good offensive talent to play with.
Individual players affect the results of weaker rosters more than stronger rosters.
What position a player plays also matters.
We lost Dach, Monahan, Newhook & Dvorak for large chunks of the season. All C's.
Evans was 4th in ice time among forwards for us as a result...
Context matters.
As for Bergevin, strong disagree on that one. He was risk-avoidant to a fault, especially with picks (Even Subban-Weber was a risk avoidant move in that he only traded him in a sideways move, expecting a no.1 for his no.1). The only move with any boldness I recall him making is Sergachev-Drouin. Even the Pacioretty trade he just had to do because the guy explicitly wanted out at that point. But he didn't do anything for years when we needed him to.
Agree to disagree.
Risk avoidance certainly can lead to poor decisions, but his poor assessment of risk was the issue.
He spent to the cap regularly, paid premiums on ufas & extensions, traded away & crapped on fan favorites... These are not "play it safe" decisions.
Again, not getting Laine isn't in that realm, but I see it as a smaller version of that small mentality reticence unless there's really something flagrant we don't know.
I don't see the reticence being a matter of risk avoidance.
If anything, given KHs own comments at the end of last season, not adding any pieces to bolster the roster despite the cap, draft capital & prospects on hand to make a move, is a riskier proposition than doing what so many GMs do on July 1st...
KH could've gone the Bergevin route and thrown cap space at a Hoffman, or traded assets for a Drouin or Anderson... They didn't because they have a plan in place, confidence in their assessments of the assets in house, and the patience to be opportunistic rather than premature.
Far cry from what we've seen here, but very familiar approach if you look at pro sports organizations that have built sustained runs of excellence.
Future is bright