News Article: Bergevin leaks out interesting information

[MSLs absurd thighs]

Apparently there's some kind of interview with Bergevin going on on the business of hockey, and he leaked out some pretty interesting information, including;

- Back in 2012, he really liked Morgan Rielly, sounds like he liked him for #3, but opted to listen to his scouts and draft Alex Galchenyuk
- Team doesn't use analytics for its own players. They use it to analyse opponents.
- He sleeps good, because he says having Carey Price helps him feel safe with his team.
- Trading is really hard these days, mainly for economic reasons
- At equal talent, Bergevin would pick a D before a F
- Back when he was in Chicago, Bergevin knew more about rookies than he does now
- Bergevin says goaltending is toughest position in hockey
- Bergevin is in no hurry to make another move
- Says our success is irrelevant. Only quarter of season played, team didn't win anything so far
- Goalies played great. Special teams need to improve.
- Peter Forsberg is the player he feared the most on the ice.

I think the interview is still on, but pretty interesting info to chew on!

Click to read more...

 

[Le Tricolore]

I also sleep well when I think about Carey Price.

 

[Habnot]

Apparently there's some kind of interview with Bergevin going on on the business of hockey, and he leaked out some pretty interesting information, including;

- Back in 2012, he really liked Morgan Rielly, sounds like he liked him for #3, but opted to listen to his scouts and draft Alex Galchenyuk
- Team doesn't use analytics for its own players. They use it to analyse opponents.
- He sleeps good, because he says having Carey Price helps him feel safe with his team.
- Trading is really hard these days, mainly for economic reasons
- At equal talent, Bergevin would pick a D before a F
- Back when he was in Chicago, Bergevin knew more about rookies than he does now
- Bergevin says goaltending is toughest position in hockey
- Bergevin is in no hurry to make another move

I think the interview is still on, but pretty interesting info to chew on!

Don't believe anything you hear about team using analytics...

No one will divulge what and how they use them/

 

[MSLs absurd thighs]

Don't believe anything you hear about team using analytics...

No one will divulge what and how they use them/

He could've said he uses them. In fact, he just said he doesn't use it for his own team. I think it's pretty safe to say Bergevin was honest about it.

What would be divulged if he said: "Yeah, we look at it and it helps us to build our hockey team.", like everyone does?

 

[Whitesnake]

Should prove my point about drafting.....Draft belongs to scouts. Thank god it did, AGAIN, in 2012. People should stop with crediting or bashing GM's for drafts unless a GM did a trade to get or lose picks that permittted their drafting team to get a specific player. But the choosing of the player itself.....belongs to scouts and only them.

 

[Smokey Thompson]

Should prove my point about drafting.....Draft belongs to scouts. Thank god it did, AGAIN, in 2012. People should stop with crediting or bashing GM's for drafts unless a GM did a trade to get or lose picks that permittted their drafting team to get a specific player. But the choosing of the player itself.....belongs to scouts and only them.

GM's have the last say. MB could have easily gone with his gut and taken Reilly, but he has the confidence to listen the people around him.

 

[Natey]

I also sleep well when I think about Carey Price.

Pyretta doesn't sleep in the same scenario.

 

[WeThreeKings]

GM's have the last say. MB could have easily gone with his gut and taken Reilly, but he has the confidence to listen the people around him.

Especially in draft number 1 with your team.

Burke also said he wanted jack Johnson instead of bobby Ryan

 

[Bob b smith]

GM's have the last say. MB could have easily gone with his gut and taken Reilly, but he has the confidence to listen the people around him.

I can't imagine where this team would be with Reilly instead of Galchenyuk.. Not good at all.

 

[Mike8]

Should prove my point about drafting.....Draft belongs to scouts. Thank god it did, AGAIN, in 2012. People should stop with crediting or bashing GM's for drafts unless a GM did a trade to get or lose picks that permittted their drafting team to get a specific player. But the choosing of the player itself.....belongs to scouts and only them.

This has no bearing on the argument of whether it's scouts or GMs that make the decisions.

GMs hire scouts. GMs staff management at all levels. As such, the GM is responsible for that staff.

It's the equivalent as saying: oh, the GM listens to his pro scouts. He's not responsible for trades made or UFAs signed.

 

[Bob b smith]

GM's have the last say. MB could have easily gone with his gut and taken Reilly, but he has the confidence to listen the people around him.

TT would be absolutely crucified for the Reilly pick right now.

 

[Smokey Thompson]

I can't imagine where this team would be with Reilly instead of Galchenyuk.. Not good at all.

Not sure why he'd want another D seeing as we'd picked defensemen in 2010 and 2011... but he ended up making the right decision.

 

[Whitesnake]

GM's have the last say. MB could have easily gone with his gut and taken Reilly, but he has the confidence to listen the people around him.

Don,t understand. If he would have had the last say, wouldn't he go with Reilly? So if he has the confidence in the people around him....doesn't it say that the draft belongs to them? The day somebody will prove to me that a GM REALLY using his veto to overcome a decision by the head scout and his bunch of scouts, who have been watching players over 10 and 15 times in the year when the GM "might" have seen the guy 1 time.....I'll revise my opinion. And again....1 or 2 examples isn't enough to make it the norm. My point is that the draft belongs to the scouts. The GM job is to appoint the best people at that spot. Or to keep them if they do great. And while Bergevin liked Rielly a lot, the pick was made by the scouts as it should and most than often will be.

 

[Whitesnake]

This has no bearing on the argument of whether it's scouts or GMs that make the decisions.

GMs hire scouts. GMs staff management at all levels. As such, the GM is responsible for that staff.

It's the equivalent as saying: oh, the GM listens to his pro scouts. He's not responsible for trades made or UFAs signed.

Well not really. It's the job of the GM to be just as aware of what's in the professionnals ranks than his assistant. In the end, he makes the deals knowing just as much as his pro scouts what he,s trading and getting. Knowing the pro ranks has nothing to do with knowing the amateur ranks. Bergevin just said that he really can't see the Dogs....I can't imagine how often he sees Baie-Comeau. But he sees the pro teams more often than not. As it's not the case for younger players, even the ones we already owe, see the Gomez trade. And how Timmins was shocked and dissapointed to see him go while the "idea" for Gainey was that McDonagh was expendable.

To say that the GM is responsible for drafts is to say that the idiot that was Réjean Houle (not his fault, he was appointed there, Corey was more stupid)...was responble for one of the greatest draft of our franchise. Take Gagné instead of Chouinard and 1998 is not only one of the best draft of our franchise but one of the best in the history of the league. Yet, we REALLY saw the limitations of Houle when it was time to do a real GM job.

 

[Smokey Thompson]

Don,t understand. If he would have had the last say, wouldn't he go with Reilly? So if he has the confidence in the people around him....doesn't it say that the draft belongs to them? The day somebody will prove to me that a GM REALLY using his veto to overcome a decision by the head scout and his bunch of scouts, who have been watching players over 10 and 15 times in the year when the GM "might" have seen the guy 1 time.....I'll revise my opinion. And again....1 or 2 examples isn't enough to make it the norm. My point is that the draft belongs to the scouts. The GM job is to appoint the best people at that spot. Or to keep them if they do great. And while Bergevin liked Rielly a lot, the pick was made by the scouts as it should and most than often will be.

A CEO wants to buy a jet. His CFO tells him he'll put the company in severe debt if he goes ahead with the purchase. The final decision is still the CEO's.

 

[Kriss E]

Don,t understand. If he would have had the last say, wouldn't he go with Reilly? So if he has the confidence in the people around him....doesn't it say that the draft belongs to them? The day somebody will prove to me that a GM REALLY using his veto to overcome a decision by the head scout and his bunch of scouts, who have been watching players over 10 and 15 times in the year when the GM "might" have seen the guy 1 time.....I'll revise my opinion. And again....1 or 2 examples isn't enough to make it the norm. My point is that the draft belongs to the scouts. The GM job is to appoint the best people at that spot. Or to keep them if they do great. And while Bergevin liked Rielly a lot, the pick was made by the scouts as it should and most than often will be.

Of course the drafts belong to the scouts. They are the ones that spend night and days on the road for most of the year checking out young players. The GM might catch a few games here and there, will likely look at a lot of videos and data, but the scouts are really the ones they rely on the most. I mean, why else would they be there?

Still, if a GM really wants a type of player, he can draft whoever he wants.
But, as anybody else would do, you tend to listen to the experts you hire. You do merit credit for hiring the right personnel though.

 

[Mike8]

Well not really. It's the job of the GM to be just as aware of what's in the professionnals ranks than his assistant. In the end, he makes the deals knowing just as much as his pro scouts what he,s trading and getting.

Says who? I've never read this criteria for a GM. The reason why I've never read it is that it's not the criteria.

By your own admission in an earlier post, a scout may have seen a junior player play 10-15 times whereas a GM has maybe seen that junior player a handful of times. The same applies to pro scouts and GMs on a given pro player.

In both instances, the GM is responsible for his staff, and trusts his staff to provide sufficient information in order to make sound decisions. In both instances, a poor staff will reflect poorly on the GM, and a good staff will reflect well on the GM. That's the essence of a hierarchical management system, and it is the very purpose of a General Manager position.

 

[Whitesnake]

A CEO wants to buy a jet. His CFO tells him he'll put the company in severe debt if he goes ahead with the purchase. The final decision is still the CEO's.

And again, the difference is that if the CEO knows NOTHING about the money structure of his company and only trusts his CFO to tell him how great we're doing, well that company is probably already in severe debt.....

I use that example often, but when we saw the 2005 draft, you know what Gainey's input was towards Timmins when Timmins said he was going with Price? Gainey said..."Are you sure?". So yep, the GM has the last say, problem with that is that the last say is 9.9out of 10 times..."Do what you want, you know those guys, I don't".

I will credit a GM the day that he analyses his prospects and finds out that his head scout and scouts are doing a bad job, recognize it and go and get somebody else that will do a better job. Just like I DO credit Bergevin for getting Stéphane Waite. But in Montréal, scouting Wise, the only thing our job had to do was to see the rankings, and understand like most of us that Timmins and Co were doing a find job.

 

[Habskrieg]

"Back when he was in Chicago, Bergevin knew more about rookies than he does now"

Wut? That's not a good thing, at all. I'm surprised he'd say something like this. Did the article actually say he knew less than he does now? Cause, I'd be worried about player development for most of our rookie players. This seems really odd and I'm quite skeptical that's what he said.

 

[Bob b smith]

- Peter Forsberg is the player he feared the most on the ice.

Not Jagr? Hull? Wonder why that is. Would it be that he's a dominant mobile physical number 1 C? I can't wait for him to follow that rationale and replace the most un-Peter Forsberg-like C filling that role in hockey today.

 

[Redux91]

TT would be absolutely crucified for the Reilly pick right now.

TT always wanted galchenyuk.

 

[Whitesnake]

Says who? I've never read this criteria for a GM. The reason why I've never read it is that it's not the criteria.

By your own admission in an earlier post, a scout may have seen a junior player play 10-15 times whereas a GM has maybe seen that junior player a handful of times. The same applies to pro scouts and GMs on a given pro player.

In both instances, the GM is responsible for his staff, and trusts his staff to provide sufficient information in order to make sound decisions. In both instances, a poor staff will reflect poorly on the GM, and a good staff will reflect well on the GM. That's the essence of a hierarchical management system, and it is the very purpose of a General Manager position.

The idea is that it's 2 different ballgames to evaluate a kid and evaluate how he could progress compared to already pro professionnals who you actually might already know their ceiling. To each their own. So yes, I will believe that evaluating players is a criteria for a GM. But I respect the scouting job enough to believe that unless you've already been in that position like a Kekalainen, the only thing as a GM you can do in that department is appoint the right people to do the job. And Gainey and the rest benefit from the job that Savard did which was bring Timmins on board. Like I also keep saying, Gainey did the deal of Rivet for Gorges and a 1st. Was that a great deal? Totally. Let's give the credit to Gainey for that deal. But I totally disagree to give the credit for Pacioretty. Why? 'Cause if Timmins would have gotten Patrick White instead, I STILL would have said that the deal was a great deal for Gainey, that it was not his fault if the scouting made a mistake there.

On the post-Scherbak pick, Bergevin said that he had seen Nikita play 1 time. And Ho-Sang 1 time too. I will choose to believe that he sees professionnal players more than that. But in the end, if your point is that everything belongs to the GM as he's the hierarchical higher power.....so be it. Your point of view. Not mine.

 

[Habsfan18]

"Back when he was in Chicago, Bergevin knew more about rookies than he does now"

Wut? That's not a good thing, at all. I'm surprised he'd say something like this. Did the article actually say he knew less than he does now? Cause, I'd be worried about player development for most of our rookie players. This seems really odd and I'm quite skeptical that's what he said.

Trevor Timmons and Martin Lapointe are the guys who are much more involved in the development of the prospects. Not Bergy.

 

[Habsfan18]

TT always wanted galchenyuk.

And that's why he's one of (if not THE) best in the business.

 

[Whitesnake]

Of course the drafts belong to the scouts. They are the ones that spend night and days on the road for most of the year checking out young players. The GM might catch a few games here and there, will likely look at a lot of videos and data, but the scouts are really the ones they rely on the most. I mean, why else would they be there?

Still, if a GM really wants a type of player, he can draft whoever he wants.
But, as anybody else would do, you tend to listen to the experts you hire. You do merit credit for hiring the right personnel though.

True. I give the merit to Bergevin for hiring Stéphane Waite. Just like I credit Waite for Price and Tokarski work. And then credit both goalies for their own work. I credit Savard for the Timmins hiring. You could potentially credit Gainey for keeping Timmins as he could have dump him because he was a Savard hiring. But it's much tougher to credit Bergevin for Timmins as the only thing he has to know is look at what he's done, compared to other teams and realize, like we all are doing, that we've got one of the best in the biz.