Gainey vs Bergevin

[optimus2861]

Hear, hear.

Somewhere in the 80s/90s era, and definitely under Molson's ownership, the focus of the Montreal Canadiens business became the brand, the history, rather than the performance. Chasing Bowman out the door in favour of a corporate lapdog was definitely the first major error and we've seen the organization make error after error after error in the same vein ever since. Always protecting the precious brand, the precious image.

Add in the fact that, without the Nordiques, the Canadiens have the Quebec/francophone fanbase held perfectly captive, and it's a toxic mix.

Until that organizational culture is burned to the ground, completely eradicated, and the focus put back upon building a Stanley Cup calibre hockey team, nothing will meaningfully change. The Canadiens will continue to spin their wheels in the mediocre muck for years, decades. All while selling (false) hope, nostalgia, and their precious brand image. And they'll do so for as long as the fanbase lets them get away with it.

Geoff Molson certainly is not the agent of that change so desperately needed. He's just another corporate toady who cares primarily about the brand. So until he's gone - and we could be damn stuck with him for a long, long time - ... well. We all gonna be singing the same old sad song again and again and again.

 

[Laurentide]

Hear, hear.

Somewhere in the 80s/90s era, and definitely under Molson's ownership, the focus of the Montreal Canadiens business became the brand, the history, rather than the performance. Chasing Bowman out the door in favour of a corporate lapdog was definitely the first major error and we've seen the organization make error after error after error in the same vein ever since. Always protecting the precious brand, the precious image.

Add in the fact that, without the Nordiques, the Canadiens have the Quebec/francophone fanbase held perfectly captive, and it's a toxic mix.

Until that organizational culture is burned to the ground, completely eradicated, and the focus put back upon building a Stanley Cup calibre hockey team, nothing will meaningfully change. The Canadiens will continue to spin their wheels in the mediocre muck for years, decades. All while selling (false) hope, nostalgia, and their precious brand image. And they'll do so for as long as the fanbase lets them get away with it.

Geoff Molson certainly is not the agent of that change so desperately needed. He's just another corporate toady who cares primarily about the brand. So until he's gone - and we could be damn stuck with him for a long, long time - ... well. We all gonna be singing the same old sad song again and again and again.

I agree completely but I must take issue with you when you characterize what the Habs do as "error after error after error". An error is when you make a mistake; in other words, when you do something accidentally that you didn't intend to do originally. I don't think that the Habs' decision-making process is by accident at all. On the contrary, it's completely by design. They made a conscious decision not to focus on winning but rather to focus on alternative means of driving revenues. It was a business decision when all is said and done. Rather than spend a lot of money on players, coaches and scouts in an effort to be an elite team, they instead chose a path of cost-effectiveness and focused on the "bread and circuses" aspect of the team; mortgaging the history and tradition of the brand rather than attempting to write new chapters. If this organization put as much thought and planning into building the on-ice product as it does with organizing its pre-game ceremonies honoring past glories it would win the Cup every year.

 

[Miller Time]

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.

yeah, meant 09, and yes, Markov was a huge loss (and his return a huge part of MT/MB's initial "success"). Point still stands that the roster assembled at that time was poorly constructed and a huge opportunity squandered in how the 08-09 off-season was handled

 

[scrubadam]

If your calling Martin equally bad to Therrien then we're done here. That's a ludicrous assessment.

Take off your MT hate googles. Martin had a season where he scrapped into the playoffs, another decent season, and then fired. The complaints against Martin were he was boring defense first hockey. When he was fired the elation was insane, people were doing back flips for Randy Cunneyworth! Randy Cunnyworth. Martin was as despised as MT was if not more.

Martin found a nice role as an assitant but his stint as HC in Montreal was hated by the fan base.

Saying they are equal isn't some sort of endorsement of MT or calling MT a genius. Both were not good coaches in Montreal and both were hated by the fanbase. Time heals all wounds but remember back to that time and how badly people wanted Martin fired. One season of 96 points isn't an amazing accomplishment for a coach.

Whatever if you want to give the slight edge to Martin/Carbo vs MT go ahead. In the end I maintain its a wash as all 3 coaches were bad for the team and hated by the fans.

 

[scrubadam]

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

always about the results. 2 out of 3 seasons with no playoffs means the results are poor and its time to move on.

But Molson is too cheap so we are stuck for now.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

yeah, meant 09, and yes, Markov was a huge loss (and his return a huge part of MT/MB's initial "success"). Point still stands that the roster assembled at that time was poorly constructed and a huge opportunity squandered in how the 08-09 off-season was handled

You mean the 09-10 season as I suppose you are referring to Gomez-Cammy-Gio's first season.

The 08-09 team was stacked. The team was dominant until it suffered from the loss of Lang in mid-season and Markov, the unequivocal mvp, just before the playoffs.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

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

The Gomez of 2010 was still worth his cap hit, and his dropoff after that season was simply not predictable. He scored 55+ points every year in his career except his sophomore season and there was no indication he'd go from 60 point guy down to 38, down to 11. To say that was predictable is revisionist.

 

[scrubadam]

I agree completely but I must take issue with you when you characterize what the Habs do as "error after error after error". An error is when you make a mistake; in other words, when you do something accidentally that you didn't intend to do originally. I don't think that the Habs' decision-making process is by accident at all. On the contrary, it's completely by design. They made a conscious decision not to focus on winning but rather to focus on alternative means of driving revenues. It was a business decision when all is said and done. Rather than spend a lot of money on players, coaches and scouts in an effort to be an elite team, they instead chose a path of cost-effectiveness and focused on the "bread and circuses" aspect of the team; mortgaging the history and tradition of the brand rather than attempting to write new chapters. If this organization put as much thought and planning into building the on-ice product as it does with organizing its pre-game ceremonies honoring past glories it would win the Cup every year.

I agree with a lot of your post except for what I bolded. This team is paying 5 mill for Julien, and then millions more for MT to sit on his butt. I don't know MB's contract but I doubt it is peanuts either. I am pretty sure everyone on MB's staff is well paid. This isn't the Islanders or Arizona.

Now I do think Molson is cheaping out this year. He didn't spend to the cap due to loss playoff revenue the last 2 years. He won't fire MB because then he will be paying 4 executives (2 coaches and 2 GM's). They also paid Weber's bonus and Price's contract is pretty much all bonuses. The team will spend big bucks, but a lot of it is in the wrong place and the wrong time.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

Take off your MT hate googles. Martin had a season where he scrapped into the playoffs, another decent season, and then fired. The complaints against Martin were he was boring defense first hockey. When he was fired the elation was insane, people were doing back flips for Randy Cunneyworth! Randy Cunnyworth. Martin was as despised as MT was if not more.

Martin found a nice role as an assitant but his stint as HC in Montreal was hated by the fan base.

Saying they are equal isn't some sort of endorsement of MT or calling MT a genius. Both were not good coaches in Montreal and both were hated by the fanbase. Time heals all wounds but remember back to that time and how badly people wanted Martin fired. One season of 96 points isn't an amazing accomplishment for a coach.

Whatever if you want to give the slight edge to Martin/Carbo vs MT go ahead. In the end I maintain its a wash as all 3 coaches were bad for the team and hated by the fans.

Martin was fired and then the team immediately fell off a cliff. Therrien was fired and the team started winning.

 

[optimus2861]

I agree completely but I must take issue with you when you characterize what the Habs do as "error after error after error". An error is when you make a mistake; in other words, when you do something accidentally that you didn't intend to do originally. I don't think that the Habs' decision-making process is by accident at all. On the contrary, it's completely by design. They made a conscious decision not to focus on winning but rather to focus on alternative means of driving revenues. It was a business decision when all is said and done. Rather than spend a lot of money on players, coaches and scouts in an effort to be an elite team, they instead chose a path of cost-effectiveness and focused on the "bread and circuses" aspect of the team; mortgaging the history and tradition of the brand rather than attempting to write new chapters. If this organization put as much thought and planning into building the on-ice product as it does with organizing its pre-game ceremonies honoring past glories it would win the Cup every year.

True. I meant "error" in the context of "a bad decision for the team on the ice," but you're correct, each decision was taken with the purpose of protecting the precious brand and image. One prime example that stuck with me was dumping Guy Carbonneau for flipping off a reporter in the offseason. Guy still had several serviceable years left in him, and the return on the trade was utter trash. But Guy committed a sin against the brand, and for that he had to go, post haste. Over and over again, it's the same damn song.

The Canadiens are now what the Leafs were in the 70s. A complete money-grubbing racket.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

The Gomez of 2010 was still worth his cap hit, and his dropoff after that season was simply not predictable. He scored 55+ points every year in his career except his sophomore season and there was no indication he'd go from 60 point guy down to 38, down to 11. To say that was predictable is revisionist.

He also had something like 49 points in his previous 50 playoff games before being traded, was top 5 in the league in playoff points in the 5 years before the trade.

And McDonagh had a mediocre season that year. Didn't play great at the WJC and his stock was down. Some were already calling him a Timmins bust.

 

[Laurentide]

I agree with a lot of your post except for what I bolded. This team is paying 5 mill for Julien, and then millions more for MT to sit on his butt. I don't know MB's contract but I doubt it is peanuts either. I am pretty sure everyone on MB's staff is well paid. This isn't the Islanders or Arizona.

Now I do think Molson is cheaping out this year. He didn't spend to the cap due to loss playoff revenue the last 2 years. He won't fire MB because then he will be paying 4 executives (2 coaches and 2 GM's). They also paid Weber's bonus and Price's contract is pretty much all bonuses. The team will spend big bucks, but a lot of it is in the wrong place and the wrong time.

They lavish money on incompetents when they don't need to and as a result they pinch pennies in areas where spending more might give them an advantage. You don't need to lavish David Deharnais with the money and term that they did. Literally no other team in the NHL wanted him. He'd have signed for whatever he was offered. Same thing with Therrien, who's contract was twice as long as he deserved. But that was just doing him the favour of a golden parachute if and when he was fired. Again, no other team was vying for his services so paying him any more than the bare minimum was a waste. Julien at least was sought-after so paying him made sense. It was the only way to secure his services because if the Habs didn't hire him some other team would have and the fans would have raked MB over the coals.

The end result of wasting money on people nobody else wants is that you wind up economizing in other areas, like your scouting department. The Habs have the money to hire more scouts, better scouts and to pay them better than any other team IF they wanted to but they aren't interested. Heck, Pierre Gauthier decided to cut the scouting staff to the bare bones and just use YouTube videos to evaluate prospects instead.

The Habs hide behind the salary cap while cheaping out in areas where no salary cap applies. The GM enriches his drinking buddies with good paying jobs for which they are unqualified and lets other important areas go to seed. So yes they spend money. They just don't spend it intelligently.

 

[Miller Time]

The Gomez of 2010 was still worth his cap hit, and his dropoff after that season was simply not predictable. He scored 55+ points every year in his career except his sophomore season and there was no indication he'd go from 60 point guy down to 38, down to 11. To say that was predictable is revisionist.

Gomez worth his contract.... revisionist indeed. It was clearly a bad decision on a player headed for a decline at the time, hindsight simply validated the initial folly of the move much more emphatically than even the more skeptical observers pointed out at the time.

funny how hard it is for some to let go of entrenched opinions no matter how clearly the evidence proves them wrong, but whatever, this discussion has already been hashed out ad nauseum.

 

[Miller Time]

You mean the 09-10 season as I suppose you are referring to Gomez-Cammy-Gio's first season.

The 08-09 team was stacked. The team was dominant until it suffered from the loss of Lang in mid-season and Markov, the unequivocal mvp, just before the playoffs.

we had 11 impending UFA's in 2008-09, creating an enviable opportunity for a cap spending team to aggressively pursue a strategic approach to building a contender.

the 08-09 team did well in the regular season, but was clearly not a legit contender... losing an old and brittle Lang as a catalyst to decline only reflects how weak the roster was from a contending perspective.

jettisoning kovalev, koivu, komisarek et. was not the issue, letting all of those assets leave without gaining any value in return and then pivoting to assign their cap space to overpaid veterans not well-suited to success in the league the way it was trending at the time was a bad management decision.

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Bergevin is better than Gainey by a hair. Both suck. Neither as awful as Houle. Last good GM this franchise had was Serge Savard.

 

[scrubadam]

Martin was fired and then the team immediately fell off a cliff. Therrien was fired and the team started winning.

You call this season winning?

And the team was about to fall off a cliff with Martin in charge.

Martin = MT. Boring old school hockey that the entire fan base hated and were calling for their heads to roll.

Both were equally bad during their runs here (only looking at their habs tenure).

What do you think during Martin's run gives him the edge over MT? Again my point is not MT is Babcock compared to JM, my point is both were bad hires.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

You call this season winning?

And the team was about to fall off a cliff with Martin in charge.

Martin = MT. Boring old school hockey that the entire fan base hated and were calling for their heads to roll.

Both were equally bad during their runs here (only looking at their habs tenure).

What do you think during Martin's run gives him the edge over MT? Again my point is not MT is Babcock compared to JM, my point is both were bad hires.

Martin had a depleted roster, including a mere 52 games from Markov over 2+ seasons and yet still got everything out of the team. Martin's teams were ready night in and night out and were always competitive in the playoffs. Under Martin we wouldn't have seen a joke of a performance like we did last year vs the Rangers, and no, the bottom was not about to fall out under Martin. There is no evidence to support that. That's your own speculation.

Martin basically never had his best player on the ice his entire tenure and still managed to send out a competitive team every night. We all saw what Therrien did without his best player.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

we had 11 impending UFA's in 2008-09, creating an enviable opportunity for a cap spending team to aggressively pursue a strategic approach to building a contender.

the 08-09 team did well in the regular season, but was clearly not a legit contender... losing an old and brittle Lang as a catalyst to decline only reflects how weak the roster was from a contending perspective.

jettisoning kovalev, koivu, komisarek et. was not the issue, letting all of those assets leave without gaining any value in return and then pivoting to assign their cap space to overpaid veterans not well-suited to success in the league the way it was trending at the time was a bad management decision.

We didn't just lose Lang though. We lost Lang, Markov, Latendresse, Tanguay, and Koivu.

 

[MaxDummy]

Hey @scrubadam! Happy to see you! Tought you were dead

 

[scrubadam]

Martin had a depleted roster, including a mere 52 games from Markov over 2+ seasons and yet still got everything out of the team. Martin's teams were ready night in and night out and were always competitive in the playoffs. Under Martin we wouldn't have seen a joke of a performance like we did last year vs the Rangers, and no, the bottom was not about to fall out under Martin. There is no evidence to support that. That's your own speculation.

Martin basically never had his best player on the ice his entire tenure and still managed to send out a competitive team every night. We all saw what Therrien did without his best player.

What ?? Martin's team was carried by Halak for its miracle run. That season they had 88 pts and if not for beating the rangers in the last game they wouldn't of made the playoffs.

the following season they lost in the first round to Boston after making the playoffs by 3 points.

And MT was not the coach against the Rangers last year that was Julien!

Martin played boring defense first hockey when he was here. They were ready to play? Big deal the results show no matter how ready they were they were barely getting it done.

Martin was a better coach in Ottawa but as the habs coach he was boring and sucked.

As far as the bottom falling out, the team was about to miss the playoffs before he was fired. If everything was going smoothly why was he canned and why did the entire city want him gone so much so that Randy Cunnyworth was looked at as some sort of savior?

I am sure Martin is a very intelligent guy and knows the game very well. But his tenure as the habs coach was a bad one. Habs fan had to suffer threw 2 years of Martin, 4 years of MT and now another 2 years of Julien, boring play it safe win 1-0 hockey.

 

[scrubadam]

Hey @scrubadam! Happy to see you! Tought you were dead

The season almost killed me. Now that its over back to some hockey talk.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

What ?? Martin's team was carried by Halak for its miracle run. That season they had 88 pts and if not for beating the rangers in the last game they wouldn't of made the playoffs.

the following season they lost in the first round to Boston after making the playoffs by 3 points.

And MT was not the coach against the Rangers last year that was Julien!

Martin played boring defense first hockey when he was here. They were ready to play? Big deal the results show no matter how ready they were they were barely getting it done.

Martin was a better coach in Ottawa but as the habs coach he was boring and sucked.

As far as the bottom falling out, the team was about to miss the playoffs before he was fired. If everything was going smoothly why was he canned and why did the entire city want him gone so much so that Randy Cunnyworth was looked at as some sort of savior?

I am sure Martin is a very intelligent guy and knows the game very well. But his tenure as the habs coach was a bad one. Habs fan had to suffer threw 2 years of Martin, 4 years of MT and now another 2 years of Julien, boring play it safe win 1-0 hockey.

1- you completely left out one of his main points, having Markov for about half a season out of 2 seasons. How Scrubadams of you. You'll never change.

2- what the flying F are you babbling on about Cunneyworth being seen as a savior?? That's some major historical revisionism. Par for the course when it comes to you.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

As far as the bottom falling out, the team was about to miss the playoffs before he was fired. If everything was going smoothly why was he canned and why did the entire city want him gone so much so that Randy Cunnyworth was looked at as some sort of savior?

Nobody looked at Cunneyworth as a savior. He was being run out of town before his first game. Martin was fired because Gauthier was an idiot who was doing random moves at random times. Firing Martin being the worst of the bunch.

 

[Harry22]

We didn't just lose Lang though. We lost Lang, Markov, Latendresse, Tanguay, and Koivu.

That 08-09 team was good had a great start: 27-11-6

It then hit a slump with injuries and bad play going 9-11-1. Team went another 4-2 before firing Carbonneay at 35-24-7.

They then had another good run (6-3-2) before injuries to Markov and Tanguay killed the team. They finished 0-3-1, limped in the playoffs before getting swept by Boston.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

That 08-09 team was good had a great start: 27-11-6

It then hit a slump with injuries and bad play going 9-11-1. Team went another 4-2 before firing Carbonneay at 35-24-7.

They then had another good run (6-3-2) before injuries to Markov and Tanguay killed the team. They finished 0-3-1, limped in the playoffs before getting swept by Boston.

Yeah. When Gainey put Tanguay-Koivu-Kovalev together on the same line it was magic. Schneider also got hurt at this time. He managed to keep playing, but he lost his shot and wasn't useful anymore.