Gainey vs Bergevin

Who is / was a better GM?


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    141

Nashy

Living on Fish Island
Feb 2, 2006
18,800
2,036
Toronto
Theodore, however that's disingenuous.[/QUOTE]

Right...and even when Theodore was hot garbage, Gainey was still able to trade him, even with a broken heel.
Talk about "hard" trades....that one still amazes me.
 

Fish on The Sand

Untouchable
Feb 28, 2002
60,203
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This notion that Gainey lost all those UFAs for nothing also needs to stop. It completely ignores all the players brought in. He effectively traded them out for new players. He just used the free agency market to do it rather than rely on other teams.

He wasn't blindly throwing darts either, the players he picked up played specific roles on the team and were targeted very deliberately. He saw the old core had run its course and bravely brought in an entire new core. I know the argument is going to be that he could have traded everyone at the deadline and still brought in those free agents, but that's not very realistic. Those guys all came in because Gainey had shown a commitment to winning. Had he sold everyone at the deadline and given up on the previous season they wouldn't have come over. If he sold those players then he would have had no choice but to go scorched earth

You can argue that pulling the plug and going scorched earth would have been better than trying again with a new core. There are arguments both ways, but to say he lost all the UFAs for nothing is just being extremely dishonest.
 

Miller Time

Registered User
Sep 16, 2004
22,837
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This notion that Gainey lost all those UFAs for nothing also needs to stop. It completely ignores all the players brought in. He effectively traded them out for new players. He just used the free agency market to do it rather than rely on other teams.

He wasn't blindly throwing darts either, the players he picked up played specific roles on the team and were targeted very deliberately. He saw the old core had run its course and bravely brought in an entire new core. I know the argument is going to be that he could have traded everyone at the deadline and still brought in those free agents, but that's not very realistic. Those guys all came in because Gainey had shown a commitment to winning. Had he sold everyone at the deadline and given up on the previous season they wouldn't have come over. If he sold those players then he would have had no choice but to go scorched earth

You can argue that pulling the plug and going scorched earth would have been better than trying again with a new core. There are arguments both ways, but to say he lost all the UFAs for nothing is just being extremely dishonest.

The Souray 07 blunder can perhaps get some slack, but the 08 summer was a collosal failure... No excuse for the sheer number of assets he gave up for nothing but cap space, which he then completely mishandled in throwing money at the smurf trio.

It was terrible asset management and roster building at a time when even a mediocre job of managing those assets would have catapulted the team into contender territory.
 
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Fish on The Sand

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The Souray 07 blunder can perhaps get some slack, but the 08 summer was a collosal failure... No excuse for the sheer number of assets he gave up for nothing but cap space, which he then completely mishandled in throwing money at the smurf trio.

It was terrible asset management and roster building at a time when even a mediocre job of managing those assets would have catapulted the team into contender territory.
The team he assembled was good though until Gomez fell off the face of the earth out of nowhere and in juries mounted up. In their first season the team went to the conference final and in their second season took the eventual champs to game 7 OT. They did all of that with no Markov. You can argue for the rebuild rather than the free agent route, but to call it a failure is laughable since the team improved.
 
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Lebowski

El Duderino
Dec 5, 2010
17,585
5,218
Like I've said in the past I prefer the 2012 team to the 2018 team.

25 years old Price
23 years old Pacioretty and Subban
3rd pick overall in the draft (Galchenyuk)
20 years old Gallagher
23 years old Eller
younger Markov and Plekanec



We basically have the same core now but older. We didn't add anybody to our core.

Bergevin hasn't improve the team on any position. (F, D or G)

I'll give Bergevin props for Petry and Danault, but it's not nearly enough for the time he has been here, and it certainly doesn't offset the more dubious moves he has made.

Heck, Paul Byron is probably one of his best moves as well. Aside from Petry who I consider to be a solid #3 dman, his highlights as a GM are all about depth players.
 
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Genesis76

True Leader
May 3, 2013
3,878
1,301
I'll give Bergevin props for Petry and Danault, but it's not nearly enough for the time he has been here, and it certainly doesn't offset the more dubious moves he has made.

Heck, Paul Byron is probably one of his best moves as well. Aside from Petry who I consider to be a solid #3 dman, his highlights as a GM are all about depth players.

He still considers the Subban and Weber trade, a very good trade. Said this morning that Weber was the guy he wanted and when you ask the HHHHHHOOCkKEY people they all say Weber is better (sort of , thats definitly what he meant).

Dis guy is eider:

A- Delusional
B- An Idiot
C- A Moron
D- Drunk all the time
E- Blind
F- A Poser
G- Molson Cors Light Rep
H- A Quebec Nordiques Fan


Z- All of the Above
 

scrubadam

Registered User
Apr 10, 2016
12,438
1,904
Julien wasn't a Gainey hire. Carbo and Martin were his only hires, and Martin is the best coach this team has seen in 25 years by a huge margin.



Theodore, however that's disingenuous.

I guess I got my timelines wrong. Or are you saying because Julien was part of the org when Gainey came in? Julein's first season was 03 which was when Gainey was hired if I am correct no?

Martin is only the best coach by default. This guy was hated just as much as MT was before he was fired.

As far as Theo. Well in 02 he won a Hart and Vezna. Gainey came on board in 03.

Would it be disingenuous to say if MB was fired today that the next GM inherited a Hart and Vezna winning goalie in Price even if Price craps the bed for the rest of his contract?
 

Fish on The Sand

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Feb 28, 2002
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I guess I got my timelines wrong. Or are you saying because Julien was part of the org when Gainey came in? Julein's first season was 03 which was when Gainey was hired if I am correct no?

Martin is only the best coach by default. This guy was hated just as much as MT was before he was fired.

As far as Theo. Well in 02 he won a Hart and Vezna. Gainey came on board in 03.

Would it be disingenuous to say if MB was fired today that the next GM inherited a Hart and Vezna winning goalie in Price even if Price craps the bed for the rest of his contract?
Gainey joined the team after the 2003 season was already finished. Julien was a Savard hire and inherited by Gainey. Theodore did win the Hart/Vezina in 02, and was coming off a strong finish to the 03 season after a miserable start, but he was never going to reach his 02 numbers ever again. It was obviously a fluke. He was not an MVP caliber player. He was a solid goaltender who fluked out one MVP season.
 

scrubadam

Registered User
Apr 10, 2016
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Gainey joined the team after the 2003 season was already finished. Julien was a Savard hire and inherited by Gainey. Theodore did win the Hart/Vezina in 02, and was coming off a strong finish to the 03 season after a miserable start, but he was never going to reach his 02 numbers ever again. It was obviously a fluke. He was not an MVP caliber player. He was a solid goaltender who fluked out one MVP season.

I do agree Julien was inherited, but Gainey did promote him so I think its fair to count him in the coaches hired. Its splitting hairs either way. Gainey's coaches were Julien, Carbo, himself and Martin.

MB's were MT and Julien. Neither guys set the world on fire with their coach hireings/promotions. Julien is a wash since he was a good promotion at the time is still a decorated coach today. So it comes down to MT vs Martin/Carbo and again a wash since all 3 are equally bad. All 3 are in the same mold as well.

As far as Theo, we can call it a fluke, but in 8 years from now we might be saying Price was a fluke too. Look at Price this season not much better than Theo as his career was winding down in Montreal. Maybe Price bounces back maybe he doesn't. Both guys inherited goalies that won hardware.

Maybe if Gainey hired a better goalie coach or took care of Theo better things would of been different. Maybe if MB never hires Waite Price doesn't have his dominant run. Lots of maybe's so better to stick to the facts that both goalies have a Hart and Vezna in their trophy case.

With all this goalie talk, Gainey gets a point for moving the declining Theo, while MB gets negative 100 points for signing Price to that stupid contract.
 

Fish on The Sand

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Feb 28, 2002
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I do agree Julien was inherited, but Gainey did promote him so I think its fair to count him in the coaches hired. Its splitting hairs either way. Gainey's coaches were Julien, Carbo, himself and Martin.

MB's were MT and Julien. Neither guys set the world on fire with their coach hireings/promotions. Julien is a wash since he was a good promotion at the time is still a decorated coach today. So it comes down to MT vs Martin/Carbo and again a wash since all 3 are equally bad. All 3 are in the same mold as well.

As far as Theo, we can call it a fluke, but in 8 years from now we might be saying Price was a fluke too. Look at Price this season not much better than Theo as his career was winding down in Montreal. Maybe Price bounces back maybe he doesn't. Both guys inherited goalies that won hardware.

Maybe if Gainey hired a better goalie coach or took care of Theo better things would of been different. Maybe if MB never hires Waite Price doesn't have his dominant run. Lots of maybe's so better to stick to the facts that both goalies have a Hart and Vezna in their trophy case.

With all this goalie talk, Gainey gets a point for moving the declining Theo, while MB gets negative 100 points for signing Price to that stupid contract.
If your calling Martin equally bad to Therrien then we're done here. That's a ludicrous assessment.
 

snakeye

Registered User
Jun 24, 2007
6,481
695
Montreal
Andre Savard wasn't canned. He stepped away from the GM job to allow Gainey to take over. He remained as an assistant GM for the first three years Gainey was GM.

Interesting. I didn't know that. Thanks for the info!
 

Mrb1p

PRICERSTOPDAPUCK
Dec 10, 2011
87,761
53,481
Citizen of the world
I do agree Julien was inherited, but Gainey did promote him so I think its fair to count him in the coaches hired. Its splitting hairs either way. Gainey's coaches were Julien, Carbo, himself and Martin.

MB's were MT and Julien. Neither guys set the world on fire with their coach hireings/promotions. Julien is a wash since he was a good promotion at the time is still a decorated coach today. So it comes down to MT vs Martin/Carbo and again a wash since all 3 are equally bad. All 3 are in the same mold as well.

As far as Theo, we can call it a fluke, but in 8 years from now we might be saying Price was a fluke too. Look at Price this season not much better than Theo as his career was winding down in Montreal. Maybe Price bounces back maybe he doesn't. Both guys inherited goalies that won hardware.

Maybe if Gainey hired a better goalie coach or took care of Theo better things would of been different. Maybe if MB never hires Waite Price doesn't have his dominant run. Lots of maybe's so better to stick to the facts that both goalies have a Hart and Vezna in their trophy case.

With all this goalie talk, Gainey gets a point for moving the declining Theo, while MB gets negative 100 points for signing Price to that stupid contract.

Except Price has 8 more top 10 years than Theodore has if you dont count both Hart seasons. Imagine saying Lundqvist is the same as Theodore, because statistically, youre saying the same thing.
 

Grate n Colorful Oz

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Jun 12, 2007
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All that chart proves is what I've said all along: this is institutional mediocrity. It doesn't matter who your GM is, the results will always be the same because the Habs always hire the same type of person to run their team and the same type of coach too. In the aspects that really matter there is scarcely a particle of difference between Bergevin, Gainey or any of their predecessors going back to Irving Grundman. They are all safe, corporate hires who don't make waves. And their preferred coach is also mostly bland, vanilla, defense-first types who also don't make waves. Is it any wonder why players with personalities that fans actually identify with are always run out of town? Look who's running the team!

We all want Bergevin to be fired but we're fooling ourselves if we believe that his successor will be fundamentally different from him or be exponentially more successful either. When the time comes to get rid of Bergevin, we will get a clone in his place, just as Julien is really just Therrien by another name.

There are so many holes in your narrative that I'm pretty sure I'd be wasting my time laying them out.
 

nhlfan9191

Registered User
Aug 4, 2010
19,585
17,344
Both are mediocre in the end. MB has proven that he is in over his head and is sinking to post boating accident Gainey level.

Gainey inherited a very good group maybe even better than MB.

Markov/Beau/Hainsey/Komi is an excellent top 4
Koivu/Ribs/Pleks is a solid group of centers the best the team would of had since the 80's
He also had Ryder and Higgins to fill out the top 6.
He inherited a Vezna and Hart winning goalie.

Both of them will be known for the trades they made. We have PK/Serge for Weber/Drouin vs Gomez for McD. Its a wash as far as which was worse with MB having a chance to pull ahead(or behind depending how you look at it) based on what happens with Drouin/Serge in the next few years.

Gainey lost all our UFA for nothing, while MB lost Radu and Markov for nothing.

Gainey's choices for coaches match up with MB. Julien/Carbo/Martin vs MT/Julien. Pretty equal if you ask me.

Both had a job to win a cup and neither accomplished that job. One stepped away so we don't know what the future would of brought, while the other is hanging onto his job because Molson 2.0 is just as cheap as Molson 1.0.

MB's 10.5x8 for Price is probably the biggest blunder of them all so for that reason I would have to say MB is worse. Gainey was lucky his mistake of Gomez was rectified with a compliance buyout, but the next GM might not get that lucky with Price.

MB after 2 seasons out of 3 with no playoffs should be gone. Best thing is for Molson to accept a tank and tell MB not to make any moves this summer so he can fire him before next years draft. But odds are even if MB tries to make the playoffs next year he will strike out at UFA so we will be stuck with the same team anyways.

I haven’t seen you in awhile but after reading your post, I can see Bergevin’s fanbase is getting thinner by the hour.
 
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Grate n Colorful Oz

Hutson Hawk
Jun 12, 2007
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In terms of impact players (top 6 - top 4 - #1G)


Gainey's tenure brought in:

A. Kostitsyn (draft)
Kovalev (for noname + signed LT)
Price (draft)
Huet (for plugs + signed 2y)
Streit (draft)
Hamrlik (signed LT)
Halak (draft)
Desharnais (signed LT)
Subban (draft)
Pacioretty (draft)
Lang (for pick, 1 season)
Tanguay (for pick, 1 season)

Gomez (for McDonagh)
Cammaleri (signed LT)
Gionta (signed LT)

Bergevin :

Chucky (draft)
Vanek (for pick, 3 months)
Petry (for pick + signed)
Weber (for Subban)
Radulov (signed 1 year)
Danault (for pick)
Drouin (for Sergachev)
Ryder (for Cole, 1 year)


One of the two isn't good at acquiring impact players.
 
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Miller Time

Registered User
Sep 16, 2004
22,837
15,034
The team he assembled was good though until Gomez fell off the face of the earth out of nowhere and in juries mounted up. In their first season the team went to the conference final and in their second season took the eventual champs to game 7 OT. They did all of that with no Markov. You can argue for the rebuild rather than the free agent route, but to call it a failure is laughable since the team improved.

Gomez's decline was at least partially predictable, or, at the least, it was already very clear he was not capable to play up to his cap hit before we acquired him.

Markov's absence coincided with PK's arrival. The roster was poorly assembled in no small part bc of how badly he overpaid for players that weren't impactful enough for the amount of the cap they took up... In doing so, he put the roster up against the cap with such fragility that 1-2 injuries were impossible to adjust to.

Poorly assembled roster combined with a perfect opportunity squandered (massive cap space in 08, numerous vets let go in one shot as UFA vs translating some of them into assets that, with the cap space, would have been excellent tools to aggressively play the trade market to land legit top talent.

He failed, badly, in 08.

But juxtaposed to Bergevin's incompetence, Gainey's tenure looks like paradise
 

Grate n Colorful Oz

Hutson Hawk
Jun 12, 2007
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Now let's have fun comparing what they inherited, notables only

Koivu
Plekanec
Ribeiro
Ryder
Zednik
Kostitsyn
Higgins
Markov
Rivet
Souray
Beauchemin
Komisarek
Theo

Plekanek
Desharnais
Pacioretty
Cole
Gionta
Chucky
Gallagher
Eller
Markov
Subban
Gorges
Emelin
Price

You go ahead and quantify that as you wish, but despite adding Kovalev, Habs barely made the playoffs with what Gainey inherited. On the other hand Bergevin didn't need to add an impact player for the habs to dominate their division with what he inherited.

And that is why comparing their records is assinine.
 

Grate n Colorful Oz

Hutson Hawk
Jun 12, 2007
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Gomez's decline was at least partially predictable, or, at the least, it was already very clear he was not capable to play up to his cap hit before we acquired him.

Markov's absence coincided with PK's arrival. The roster was poorly assembled in no small part bc of how badly he overpaid for players that weren't impactful enough for the amount of the cap they took up... In doing so, he put the roster up against the cap with such fragility that 1-2 injuries were impossible to adjust to.

Poorly assembled roster combined with a perfect opportunity squandered (massive cap space in 08, numerous vets let go in one shot as UFA vs translating some of them into assets that, with the cap space, would have been excellent tools to aggressively play the trade market to land legit top talent.

He failed, badly, in 08.

But juxtaposed to Bergevin's incompetence, Gainey's tenure looks like paradise

You mean 09.

And losing Markov is no small thing, you can't easily replace him, can't easily adjust to that. Subban was a rookie and sophomore those two years to boot.
 
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Luigi Habs

Captain Saku
Jul 30, 2005
17,466
3,802
Montreal
Let's see. Gainey gave us Pacioretty Price Subban

Bergevin gave us.. uh.. Danault.

Before the Gomez trade Gainey was the best GM we had since Serge Savard.

He brought us Kovalev, and had a clear vision on where the team was going. Until the 2008-2009 season when he assembled the best team the habs had since we won the cup. Look at the lineup, the team was stacked. But nothing everything that could have gone wrong went wrong during that season. Started very strong and ended very poorly to the point we almost missed the playoffs with injuries to key players. After that season basically all UFAs left and he went crazy.

But to me, he was the GM that made me a believer for the only time since 93. At least he identified the weaknesses and tried to do something. He also said in an interview that the centennial celebrations there was too much pressure to have a contender team. He should not be put in the same sentence as Bergevin. Bergevin is more comparable to the disastrous Rejean Houle.
 

NORiculous

Registered User
Jan 13, 2006
5,309
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Montreal
This notion that Gainey lost all those UFAs for nothing also needs to stop. It completely ignores all the players brought in. He effectively traded them out for new players. He just used the free agency market to do it rather than rely on other teams.

He wasn't blindly throwing darts either, the players he picked up played specific roles on the team and were targeted very deliberately. He saw the old core had run its course and bravely brought in an entire new core. I know the argument is going to be that he could have traded everyone at the deadline and still brought in those free agents, but that's not very realistic. Those guys all came in because Gainey had shown a commitment to winning. Had he sold everyone at the deadline and given up on the previous season they wouldn't have come over. If he sold those players then he would have had no choice but to go scorched earth

You can argue that pulling the plug and going scorched earth would have been better than trying again with a new core. There are arguments both ways, but to say he lost all the UFAs for nothing is just being extremely dishonest.
They also came because he traded for Gomez, and he was highly regarded at the time but the players.

Of course we know how Gomez turned out but it still had a positive impact on other players wanting ti come to MTL
 

Laurentide

Registered User
Mar 24, 2018
3,246
3,408
Edmonton, Alberta
There are so many holes in your narrative that I'm pretty sure I'd be wasting my time laying them out.
And you think that posting on an internet message board isn't a waste of time in the first place? That's pretty much why we're here. It's either this or Candy Crush.

The Habs of the post-Bowman era have been characterized by their lack of style, artistry, elan, panache, or whatever else you want to call it. They have been for the most part and almost to the point where you'd suspect it was deliberate, boring. This directive has always come from the top. You look back on all the GM's they've had since Pollock left. Serge Savard stands out as the most adventurous of them all. Considering that he was a defenseman as a player and fairly conservative as a manager it's telling that he represents the high water mark for taking risks over the past 3 decades. The rest were either suffering from creative paralysis like Gainey or were simply hired because they were corporate toadies like Irv Grundman or Pierre Gauthier.

And what sorts of coaches do guys like that tend to hire? Men in their own image; similarly risk-averse. Bob Berry. Jacques Lemaire. Alain Vigneault. Therrien. Julien. Serge Savard was pretty much the only GM who even strayed outside that box with hires like Demers, Burns and to a lesser extent Perron, who was just plain nuts. But even those guys were far from the definition of run-and-gun, riverboat gamblers.

And then we have the players themselves. A lot of "character" guys like Rick Green, Mike Keane, Kirk Muller, and Thomas Plekanec. But what of the flashy star players with big personalities who stir the juices of the fan base? Lafleur: pushed into premature retirement. Chelios: traded for an over-the-hill Denis Savard. Stephane Richer: traded. Guy Carbonneau: traded. Roy: traded. Subban: traded. And these trades never bring an equally big personality in return. It's always a quieter, more "workmanlike" player coming the other way. It's not a coincidence. It's company policy.
 
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