He was a top prospect by anyone's account - he had won the top defenseman in the OHL award, and later won a Memorial Cup, He was ranked as the number one defenseman on multiple scouts list going into the draft. I'm not sure how much more of a top prospect you'd have to be.
We traded for a guy based on the language/heritage, and we lost a guy who's been good enough to win a couple of cups while being a pillar on their blue line. Good enough that they signed him to an 8 year deal.
In return we got a guy who shows up half the time, loses interest 75 percent of the time, and is injured or having mental issues one hundred percent of the time.
That's BS in that you make it sound like they traded for a leper because he happened to be Québécpis and speak French. It's dishonest.
That Drouin, for many reasons, don't live up to expectations (which were heightened because of immediate dislike of the player -- maybe because of heritage/language?), is another issue.
Drouin was a 3rd OA pick that had showed a level of skill at the NHL level already. Bergevin failed to keep improving the team after that trade, even losing Radulov, for example and failed to put Drouin in a position too succeed, playing him as the #1C in the NHLdespite him not having played C in years.
Drouin, to me, is a disappointment and Sergachev was my draft choice at #9. I was ecstatic when Montreal chose him (over Chychrun, for example).
However, at the time, I understood wanting to add offense and Drouin wasn't 30, or close to it. Trading a prospect for a player further along in development who had shown signs of producing offense (even in the playoffs) made sense for a team needing more offense.
But, then, losing Radulov and negating the addition of offense that represented Drouin, failing to add the still missing top-6C and not retaining Markov as a stop-gap on LD cancelled any value in trading Sergachev for Drouin.
The same way that trading Subban for Weber and not adding more to the roster in terms of missing pieces (A friggin' top-6 C) was another example of Bergevin,s inability to finish the job he started.