What the Puck: Canadiens GM Bergevin hasn’t earned a contract extension
Bergevin #Bergevin
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Owner Geoff Molson should demand playoff success before bringing back GM who has only had mediocre results during his nine years in Montreal.
Author of the article:
Brendan Kelly • Montreal Gazette
Publishing date:
May 10, 2021 • May 10, 2021 • 4 minute read • 31 Comments 
Canadiens owner Geoff Molson, left, and general manager Marc Bergevin are discussing a contract extension, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette Article content
The Canadiens need to bring back a true winning culture, and to do that will take major changes at the highest level.
But it doesn’t look like that is going to happen. On Saturday, Elliotte Friedman said on Hockey Night in Canada that Canadiens owner and president Geoff Molson is in talks with Montreal general manager Marc Bergevin to extend his contract.
“Marc Bergevin and the owner Geoff Molson have been kind of talking about the future; how the owner feels, how the general manager feels, if there is an extension what it could potentially look like,” said Friedman, one of Canada’s most dialled-in hockey insiders. “So we’ll see where those decisions go and where those conversations go, but I think they are underway about the GM’s future with the Canadiens.”
If this report is true, and there’s no reason to doubt it, this is terrible news for Canadiens fans. I’m not saying Molson needs to fire Bergevin after this season. But if he is indeed talking with his GM about his future before this season is even over, that says to me that Molson is considering giving him a contract extension, maybe even before the playoffs happen.
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That would be a terrible decision. Sadly, there’s a good chance it will happen. When Molson and his partners bought the team in 2009, the representative of the new generation of a family that has had an ownership stake in the team on-and-off for decades said it was time to bring back a winning culture.
We are approaching the 12th anniversary of the Molson purchase of the team from U.S. entrepreneur George Gillett, and the only positive thing you can say is that financially Molson has done well. On the ice, it has been a mediocre dozen years. And the main reason the current ownership has failed to ice a winner is because Molson appears to have blind faith in Bergevin.
Molson doesn’t want my advice, but I’ll give it anyways. Don’t sign Bergevin to a contract extension. Not now, not after the playoffs. Wait to see what happens next season because, at best, the jury is out on the nine-year Bergevin regime. At the very least, wait for these playoffs. If Montreal makes a series of it with the Leafs, that’s one thing. If the CH gets smoked, Berg has to go.
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Bergevin has made some excellent deals, particularly in the last couple of years. But he simply has no vision as to how to construct a winning NHL team.
This season is the perfect example. His off-season pick-ups were good. Just imagine this season without Jake Allen, Joel Edmundson, Tyler Toffoli, Josh Anderson and Corey Perry. The CH would be basement dwellers without these guys.
But none of the deals moved the needle. As of Monday afternoon, Montreal was 18th in the league, with two more games to play, clinging to the final playoff spot in the North Division. Last year, the team finished 24th and snuck into the play-in round in the COVID-19 bubble playoffs.
If your deals don’t create a winning team, they’re meaningless. The apologists say the P.K. Subban/Shea Weber trade was brilliant, yet the team hasn’t won a single playoff series five years into the Weber era. The most damning criticism of the Bergevin is that he and his head of scouting, Trevor Timmins, have failed to draft and develop a single player who is a bona fide success story.
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Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Alexander Romanov and Cole Caufield may become notable NHL players in the future, but that hasn’t happened yet. What has happened is that Alex Galchenyuk, Michael McCarron, Nikita Scherbak and others have all stiffed. That’s a terrible legacy.
The one very good draft choice, Mikhail Sergachev, was traded to Tampa Bay for Jonathan Drouin, who has also fizzled. There has been more failure than success since Bergevin took over in 2012.
Molson needs to show the fan base that he cares about winning the ultimate prize and re-signing Bergevin now would send the opposite message. What he should be doing is installing a culture of excellence chez le Canadien.
He shouldn’t be passive and stick with the old guy just because he knows him. He should be big about this. He should realize that the best way forward is to create a new management structure in which he kicks himself upstairs to become president of the Groupe CH rather than president of the Montreal Canadiens.
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He can provide the vision for the overall company, including its entertainment division that includes Evenko and the city’s leading festivals. Then appoint a prominent Quebec figure as president of the Canadiens and let that person oversee the Habs GM.
The new president might stick with Bergevin or he might not. Let him (or her) decide. But don’t reward mediocrity by signing a contract extension now.
bkelly@postmedia.com
twitter.com/brendanshowbiz
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