Some fans just think that whoever is traded away will be better than whoever we get back. It speaks to a lack of confidence in management more than anything to do with reality. The reality is that Sergachev is playing on a much better team and is being given easy minutes because their team has depth enough to cover for him. But because he's putting up points somewhere else Montreal fans think he's the second coming of Bobby Orr.
I'm no fan of Bergevin but all he did was trade a prospect who hadn't played a single NHL game for a more proven commodity nearly as young as the one he gave up who had produced at an NHL level. We need players with offensive ability and Drouin has that. When he was in Tampa people *****ed about how the Habs let another francophone who can score get taken from under their noses. Now that he's here he's obviously crap. It's the old "I would never want to join a club that would have me as a member" syndrome.
The truth of the matter is that Drouin isn't as bad as he's looked nor is Sergachev as good as he's looked. This was not a slam-dunk win for either team nor is it a slam-dunk failure either. Every player on the Habs roster with only a couple of exceptions had a crap season. I'm not prepared to declare that a 22 or 23 year old kid who proved with Tampa that he has the ability to be an offensive catalyst is now a bum for life because he didn't light it up right out of the gate playing out of position with a new team that has a fraction of the talent that Tampa has. I'm also not going to declare that Sergachev is a franchise defenseman simply because he had a good season on a stacked team. At the time of the trade, Drouin was the more proven and more valuable asset.
As bad as the Habs' blue line was this season, this team has never had problems drafting good defensemen (and they practically wrote the book on how to waste first round picks on fourth line wingers who can't hit the ocean from a beach) Its weakness has been its inability to draft offensive talents like Drouin. So we don't have Sergachev. Big deal. If he had stayed we'd still be out of the playoffs, he'd be exposed (especially with the injury to Weber) and not have nearly the numbers he's got in Tampa and we'd still be looking for guys who can score. The simple fact is that scorers are more rare than defensemen. We can draft another Sergachev pretty much every year.
In 2017-18 the Habs defense corps and goaltending had a bad year. But the Habs offense (such as it is) has had a decade's worth of bad years. That is the area that needs to be addressed. Goaltending and defense will take care of itself as long as Price reverts to the mean and Weber stays healthy. This season was an outlier on the back end. But the problems up front never seem to go away. I don't care who your goalie is or who you've got playing defense. If you can't score you can't win. This team does not score enough. It needs a Drouin more than it needs a Sergachev.
Apart from one playoff run where he produced (mostly on the PP), Drouin has never been a catalyst. And even then, he never really carried a line, he needed to be provided space.
Also, scorers are rarer than defenceman? Really? In the sense that guys like Drouin are rarer than guys like Schlemko, sure. But I guarantee you more teams want to upgrade their defence than their forward groups. Good defencemen are really hard to find.
And even if we go with the ifs that Price will bounce back and Weber will be healthy and good, Montreal's D-core is still bad. Really bad. Petry has been overworked, Mete and Juulsen still need a lot of work, Alzner is atrocious, and everyone else are replacement level. The D still doesn't have someone than can consistently stretch the ice and create space in transition, which is a must in the modern NHL. And guys that do that well are as rare as #1 C's, if not rarer.
You want good team defence? You're going to need forwards that can backcheck, defend well and support the D along with a strong D-core. You want good team offense? You're going to need D that can transition the puck well and create space off the rush and in the cycle for forwards.
The reality is that there is reason to be concerned that Montreal traded their top-D prospect, who has had a lot of success in the NHL as a 19 year old (which is rare) for a one dimensional forward that hasn't produced all that well when put in prime offense situations. If Drouin is a winger, then he'd better take a leap forward, since the Habs traded from a situation of weakness to bolster a situation of (relative) strength and gave up age and cap flexibility.