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The Good, The Bad & The Ugly Game
Season 2015-2016

GAME 60 MONTREAL 1 NASHVILLE 2 (SO)

Mitch
Season 2015-2016SportsThe Good, The Bad & The Ugly Game
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YAWN.
So this is what this season has come down to – all the drama is in the press dining room prior to the game. Look it’s Marc Bergevin and David Poile having a discussion (“C’mon Dave, you gave up a 2nd round pick to get Hal Gill”). Or – Stan Bowman is here? What’s he doing here? What can he see with his eyes that his usual Montreal spy Pierre Gauthier can’t (heh heh)? Look – Bergevin and Bowman are talking (“Tell me again Stan, I’ve forgotten”). Maybe Bergevin was just doing some World Cup work. Actually, maybe that’s what he’s been doing all season.
You don’t think Stan Bowman would make a trip to Montreal to watch Dale Weise (asking price: one second round pick and one third, according to Craig Custance of ESPN) who apparently couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. Is Weise physically sick or just heartbroken knowing his dream-come-true Montreal tenure is coming to an end?
What a mess.
It makes you long for the heady days of 2011-12 when Gauthier at least kept you on your toes, firing an assistant coach an hour before game time; firing a head coach just before Christmas and replacing him with a rookie unilingual anglo; trading a player during a game and acquiring another over-the-hill player whose most recent claim to fame was being part of celebratory bar bill at a Massachusetts casino. All this while trying to fix a leaky roof.
Avez-vous besoin de plus d’aide Mister Bergevin?
THE GOOD

  • Andrei Markov. Third consecutive strong effort from Habs oldest player. Did he turn it around in Denver?
  • P.K. Subban. Typically controlled the play with the puck on his stick but not nearly as dominant as he was against Philadelphia. Notably, late in the game he crossed centre ice and dumped the puck in because, you know, the extra point up for grabs was crucial so why not wait for the shootout?
  • Brendan Gallagher. One of Bergevin’s best moves was locking him up through 2019-20 when his salary in that final year will be 4 million. His game tying goal gave him 16 this season in 43 games. Or just 5 goals less than Max Pacioretty in 17 fewer games.
  • Mike Condon. Back to back strong performances (67 saves on 70 shots) raised his season save percentage all the way up to .904. He sure gives up a lot of early goals.
  • Jacob de la Rose. With reports of Lars Eller being on the market – and really, other than Subban, Gallagher and Price who isn’t? – Habs must feel de la Rose can move in as a third line centre as soon as next season. No issue with that as long as Tomas Plekanec and David Desharnais aren’t 1-2.
  • Tomas Fleischamnn. There is only one explanation for Fleischmann (one goal in 26 games) getting nearly 18:00 of ice time – The Habs believe they can get a 7th round pick for him.
  • Nathan Beaulieu. Looked good having to play the right side next to Alexei Emelin. Until he carried the puck beautifully to the Nashville net where he was pushed into the goalpost and injured by Colin Wilson. Response from the Habs? Lars Eller smiled at Mike Fisher.

THE BAD

  • Torrey Mitchell. Finally got his first shot on goal in 7 games. Was manhandled in the face off circle (33%). Maybe he misses Brian Flynn. Under contract for two more years.
  • Devante Smith-Pelly. Outplayed by Tomas Fleischmann.
  • Lucas Lessio. Yanked back out of the line up after an uneventful home debut vs Philly, Lessio got another chance when Weise got sick. But he didn’t exactly make the most of it.
  • Lars Eller. Not a good night in the #2 centre slot.
  • Michel Therrien. So Jason Pominville, dormant most of the season, wakes up with the rest of the Wild en route to an easy win over the defending Stanley Cup champs on the outdoor rink in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Since Minnesota fired Mike Yeo as coach they’ve won 4 straight games while scoring 20 goals and moving back into the Western Conference playoff picture. Pominville told Pierre Mcguire that the Wild are “a lot more relaxed”. That they were playing “afraid to make mistakes”. McGuire calls it paralysis by analysis. It happens to good coaches everywhere. And it’s a pretty apt description of what’s gone down here since early December. There are only so many times you can blame “lack of execution”.

THE UGLY

  • Potential UFA Tom Gilbert done for the season. Trop de patience Mister Bergevin.
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Mitch

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3 Responses

  1. I’ve racked my brain for the past three months trying to figure out what is going on with the Habs? And I have tried, at various times, to give Bergevin and even Therrien the benefit of the doubt. Even now, I try to look at the big picture, recognizing our need to accumulate draft picks and add pieces that, with Carey back next year, will help us get to where we want to go. I see Toronto dealing players left and right, even big contracts, and building up draft picks…ten in the first three rounds for each of the next two years.
    And then reality hits as the Canadiens do nothing…Gilbert should have been dealt weeks ago. Now we will lose him for nothing because of his injury. We trade a former No. 1 pick for scraps and get no explanation as to why. We see Wiese still here, Desharnais still here (there are good little men in the NHL…see Gallagher or Tyler Johnson to name a couple…but these guys have some guts in them), Markov still here or Emelin. As Bobby Dollas said this morning, you have to recognize that these players are not part of your future but they are still here. If anyone has the foggiest clue as to what the plan is in Montreal i would love to hear it because, personally, I’m as much in the dark as anyone.
    I’ve loved the Canadiens since I was 7. My emotional investment in this team matches any money that Geoff Molson has put forth. I sympathize with Chris Nilan who says he hates the negative talk around the team he loves. So do I but with Bergevin consistently silent, we are left with a void and so speculation is rampant. I keep hearing Wayne Gretzky’s comment in my head about New Jersey, back in the day, being a Mickey Mouse organization. What are the Canadiens’ right now if not a Mickey Mouse organization run by Goofy himself?
    I am trying to hold out hope that we can get rid of some of the deadwood and get something back. This season is over and we need to plan for the future. Can anyone really admit they have confidence Bergevin is going to make the moves necessary to get this team back on track? There have been bad seasons in Montreal over the years but this has to rank as the worst in my memory.

  2. ON MARC BERGEVIN…Mitch, your colleagues on Habs Breakfast on 25 Feb had an interesting discussion about MB and whether he should stay as Habs’ GM. Most felt Bergevin had done an okay job save for Connor who did not. i agree with Connor on that but also recognize that Bergevin is going nowhere…at least for the short term.
    Bergevin has been here now almost four years. One could easily ask what has he done to make this team better? Certainly, there has been a better sense of stability since he arrived but, as Connor pointed out, he inherited the three mainstays of this Habs team in Price, Subban and Pacioretty. Brendan Gallagher was not drafted under his watch and the only significant move he has made has been the drafting of Alex Galchenyuk. Bergevin has been very good at picking up lower quality players like Wiese, Paul Byron, Mark Barberio and others. I did think, at one point, gettting Torrey Mitchell and Brian Flynn was a good move but Mitchell’s play since November has been spotty at best and Flynn is currently injured. So how then to evaluate Bergevin’s performance? To me, it is like any business or other sports team…have you made the team better during your tenure or is it worse? Where would the Habs be today with a healthy Carey Price? Would they have built on their terrific start, players gaining confidence and would they be a dynamic team now and certainly leading the Eastern Conference? I suggest they would but that is more a reflection on how much Price means to this team as opposed to how good they really are. It is always the ability to fight through adversity that determines if you have a good team.
    Based on that, and probably a good thing if thinking about the future, this season has demonstrated the Canadiens have not addressed the issues that have affected this team for well over 20 years. That is a no. 1 centre and another scoring top six forward. One could argue that the no. 1 centre is already on the team but the handling of Galchenyuk in terms of playing centre has to be questioned severely. And absolutely nothing has been done to improve the top six forwards. The top GM in the game today is a non-player. That is Stan Bowman in Chicago whose teams have won three titles in six years. Twice Bowman has had to get rid of valuable players due to salary cap reasons and twice he has rebuilt the Blackhawks to win Cups. Granted, they have excellent talent to build around in terms of Toews, Kane, Hossa, Keith, Seabrook and Crawford. Still, they have managed to add players like Panarin and others to help their top guys. As Florida did with Jagr, Chicago added a quality player in Hossa who is a physical marvel and still playing quality hockey late in his career. The Habs had that opportunity with both Hossa and Jagr and obtained neither. In Jagr’s case, he wanted to come here. Imagine how much better Montreal’s power play would be with Jagr!
    Bergevin, on simply a factual level, has not done a good job and has made some very poor evaluations in terms of adding quality, veteran players. Jagr and Hossa are merely two big examples.
    The other job of a GM is signing players to contracts. In that sense, Bergevin has signed players to some very bad contracts. I admire Andre Markov as a player but I am not sure he is a leader nor is he someone who deserved his latest contract? Branch Rickey used to say you move a guy a year too early rather than a year too late. In Markov’s case, that is completely true although one wonders if his ice time was managed better by the coach would he still be an effective player? Nonetheless, that was a bad contract as was the contract given to Lars Eller, David Desharnais and Tomas Plekanec. As Connor pointed out this morning, it wasn’t until Geoff Molson stepped in that the Habs were able to resign Subban. Had it been left to MB, who knows where Subban would be playing today?
    In conclusion, in four years, in my opinion, Marc Bergevin has done little to make this team better and the clock is ticking on Price and others. By the way, we have not even mentioned the apparent mishandling of Price’s injury or the code of silence that has fallen over the Habs front office in recent memory. The greatest GM in Habs history, Sam Pollock, was not an ex-player but a Canadiens’ lifer who learned his craft from Frank Selke Sr. and honed it in the minors with the Hull-Ottawa Jr. Canadiens and then learning under Mr. Selke in the front office. How would Sam do today? Well, I suggest he would have at least done what Serge Savard was all too aware of when he became Habs’ GM in the early 80’s. He knew the Habs needed a big centre and went and got Bobby Smith. Later on, he went and got Kirk Muller, not to mention Vinny Damphousse. In each case, a Stanley Cup soon followed.

  3. Five years.
    It’s easy to sit at a keyboard or in front of a microphone and yell “Fire everybody”. I’m a big picture guy. Bergevin came in here following a last place finish and rebuilt the organization. He’s had a terrible season and an even worse calendar year. But this is year four. He has yet to put his stamp on the team. If the Habs are still struggling a year from now with a healthy Carey Price then I’d say perhaps it’s time to look elsewhere. He now has a window to reshape this team. I’m certainly not as confident that he can, based on the last year, but he gets the chance. Let’s see what he does with it.

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