Marc Bergevin: Tilting at Windmills Edition

[Runner77]

"The medium is crap."
- yianik on MB

That's it. You're a misfortune teller.

 

[Runner77]

There's a really interesting story about that book by McLuhan.

The Medium is the Massage

I spent way too much time on McLuhan in my university years. It's been too long, I'd need a refresher now.

 

[Runner77]

Is Chayka regarded as a weak, middling, or good GM?

I don't know him well enough. Only know that he places an extreme reliance in analytics.

 

[groovejuice]

was that GM meeting video of other GMs refusing to shake bergevin's outside that florida hotel- ever explained?

No, but it's a fair speculation that Bergevin really pissed off Brad Treliving, likely with a reneging of a TD handshake deal.

 

[DAChampion]

No, but it's a fair speculation that Bergevin really pissed off Brad Treliving, likely with a reneging of a TD handshake deal.

When I see that video, my first guess is that Treliving just really needed to take a piss and that he was rushing to the bathroom.

 

[Scriptor]

If Galchenyuk improves in Arizona, and scores 30 goals, 65 points from the centre position while playing a 200-foot game, the response of the Bergevin defenders will be that he has not actually improved.

Galchenyuk can get 65 points , but not by playing a 200' game. If they let him cheat, he can do it, for sure. What will be important is to see what the net result is against opponents, not the point tally on its own.

When Galchenyuk scored 30, MON still lost two nearly out of every three games down the stretch that season, where he tallied more of his points. He and Pacioretty were cheating and neglecting the 200' game the whole time.

 

[groovejuice]

I spent way too much time on McLuhan in my university years. It's been too long, I'd need a refresher now.

He link is just a very short and amusing explanation about the actual title of his book, and how it got there.

Like anything knowledge gained from University (or life in general), it will fade over time if not put to use.

 

[yianik]

I suspect that Chayka relied on the type of analytics that elude Bergevin, or that Bergevin abhors.

Give me the 9-goal pygmy that oozes attitude and sundry intangibles over the high maintenance lanky Russian with daddy issues.

(But, but Marc ... he's not Russian!)

You mean like the Analytics Guy we had who threw a bunch of stats at MB showing why PK was clearly the better player over Weber ? The Analytics Guy who stood alone in the room against the intellectual gerbils who all piled on to support MBs intention to trade PK for Weber ?

Kid was talking to a room full of Homer Simpson clones.

Rinse, repeat.

 

[groovejuice]

When I see that video, my first guess is that Treliving just really needed to take a piss and that he was rushing to the bathroom.

 

[nhlfan9191]

Those aren't my words. I said that he dismantled the D, traded away net skill for net attitude, and acquired many downgrades at most positions. This is all true.

Do you have an advanced stat to back that up? If you don’t, your point is invalid to him.

 

[yianik]

That's it. You're a misfortune teller.

Give it the thumbs down and be right 9 out of 10. Easy peasy.

 

[DAChampion]

There's a few things that I don't think I've written on the Pacioretty situation:

1) There was a rumor that the ROR trade was a three-way traded, where the Sabres would get the Islanders 11th or 12th pick, the Habs would get ROR, and the Islanders would get Pacioretty. If so, then it was another fail by Bergevin. The better trade would have been Pacioretty for the 11th overall, straight up.

In general, when we critique Bergevin on here we do so based on the movies that he's made. However, he is likely worse than that, we just don't know about the moves that he has not made. If this is in fact true, then Bergevin failing to trade Pacioretty for an 11th overall is comparably bad to his worst moves. It goes along with his failure to acquire Terevainen when he was available for cheap, his failure to acquire Jagr when he was available for cheap, and the failure to trade Subban to the Oilers at the 2016 draft rather than for Weber. There may be some great deals that he failed to act upon that we don't know about.

2) There was supposedly a deal involving Pacioretty to LA. I don't know what LA offered to the Habs. The story is that Pacioretty nixed the deal, he wants to wait until he's UFA to get the best deal that he can. Supposedly he's angry about his last contract with the Habs, where he agreed to be underpaid to the tune of ~10-15 million dollars overall, if we're honest.

If so, Pacioretty needs to get a clue. There's this thing called the "sunk cost" fallacy. He will never get back that money. He was a moron and now the money is gone.

Pacioretty may wish to try and score 40 goals this year to maximize his UFA value. However, if he does that he risks getting an injury, which could cost him 20 or 30 million dollars. He's better off signing with a contender and pocketing the security. Further, Bergevin is petty and might not allow him to score 40 goals. I could see the Habs burying Pacioretty on the 4th line (which would tank his trade value), just out of spite.

 

[Roke]

I don't know him well enough. Only know that he places an extreme reliance in analytics.

That's his reputation, but I'm not so sure. He did have an analytics company but they didn't do any public work so we don't have anything to go on. For all we know it could be like most analytics consultants/companies and he was selling snakeoil to teams, just telling them what they want to hear.

I think he's done a decent job in Phoenix given their spending constraints and there wasn't much to work with but I don't think he's some amazing GM wizard. Will be interesting to see if he's finally able to get them to make a leap forward.

 

[Roke]

2) There was supposedly a deal involving Pacioretty to LA. I don't know what LA offered to the Habs. The story is that Pacioretty nixed the deal, he wants to wait until he's UFA to get the best deal that he can. Supposedly he's angry about his last contract with the Habs, where he agreed to be underpaid to the tune of ~10-15 million dollars overall, if we're honest.

If so, Pacioretty needs to get a clue. There's this thing called the "sunk cost" fallacy. He will never get back that money. He was a moron and now the money is gone.

Pacioretty may wish to try and score 40 goals this year to maximize his UFA value. However, if he does that he risks getting an injury, which could cost him 20 or 30 million dollars. He's better off signing with a contender and pocketing the security. Further, Bergevin is petty and might not allow him to score 40 goals. I could see the Habs burying Pacioretty on the 4th line (which would tank his trade value), just out of spite.

If Pacioretty not agreeing to an extension is what caused LA to pull out of a deal I don't think that's on him - if you look at trade value the way a more forward-thinking sport like baseball does where value is about the calibre of player for what they cost rather than just about the calibre of player like it still is in hockey then an extension shouldn't move the needle on the value LA is willing to give up in a trade unless the extension is a lowball one.

Given that he's coming off an abysmally unlucky shooting percentage season and teams still stupidly pay players in large part because of hot or cold shooting percentage (hello Tom Wilson) then betting on himself's probably the right decision.

He's earned enough already to be set for life if he wasn't dumb with his money so he doesn't need the instant security like a star coming off an entry-level-conract does.

 

[yianik]

There's a few things that I don't think I've written on the Pacioretty situation:

1) There was a rumor that the ROR trade was a three-way traded, where the Sabres would get the Islanders 11th or 12th pick, the Habs would get ROR, and the Islanders would get Pacioretty. If so, then it was another fail by Bergevin. The better trade would have been Pacioretty for the 11th overall, straight up.

In general, when we critique Bergevin on here we do so based on the movies that he's made. However, he is likely worse than that, we just don't know about the moves that he has not made. If this is in fact true, then Bergevin failing to trade Pacioretty for an 11th overall is comparably bad to his worst moves. It goes along with his failure to acquire Terevainen when he was available for cheap, his failure to acquire Jagr when he was available for cheap, and the failure to trade Subban to the Oilers at the 2016 draft rather than for Weber. There may be some great deals that he failed to act upon that we don't know about.

2) There was supposedly a deal involving Pacioretty to LA. I don't know what LA offered to the Habs. The story is that Pacioretty nixed the deal, he wants to wait until he's UFA to get the best deal that he can. Supposedly he's angry about his last contract with the Habs, where he agreed to be underpaid to the tune of ~10-15 million dollars overall, if we're honest.

If so, Pacioretty needs to get a clue. There's this thing called the "sunk cost" fallacy. He will never get back that money. He was a moron and now the money is gone.

Pacioretty may wish to try and score 40 goals this year to maximize his UFA value. However, if he does that he risks getting an injury, which could cost him 20 or 30 million dollars. He's better off signing with a contender and pocketing the security. Further, Bergevin is petty and might not allow him to score 40 goals. I could see the Habs burying Pacioretty on the 4th line (which would tank his trade value), just out of spite.

You mean like the supposed attempt by MB to sign Nick F'n Bonino as a UFA last summer to address our C issue by offering more money than the $4.1M the Preds offered ? The Nick F'n Bonino who is a 25-35 point scorer ?

Is that what you mean ?

 

[BehindTheTimes]

Is Chayka regarded as a weak, middling, or good GM?

I would say too soon to judge tbh. He's made some good moves and I think he definitely represents the type of progressive thinking we should have welcomed when we hired our own GM. He values analytics a great deal, he's really handcuffed on cap spending, front office spending, he's in a tough spot, and so far the results haven't been there, but they do seem to be trending in a positive direction at least.

 

[yianik]

There's a few things that I don't think I've written on the Pacioretty situation:

1) There was a rumor that the ROR trade was a three-way traded, where the Sabres would get the Islanders 11th or 12th pick, the Habs would get ROR, and the Islanders would get Pacioretty. If so, then it was another fail by Bergevin. The better trade would have been Pacioretty for the 11th overall, straight up.

In general, when we critique Bergevin on here we do so based on the movies that he's made. However, he is likely worse than that, we just don't know about the moves that he has not made. If this is in fact true, then Bergevin failing to trade Pacioretty for an 11th overall is comparably bad to his worst moves. It goes along with his failure to acquire Terevainen when he was available for cheap, his failure to acquire Jagr when he was available for cheap, and the failure to trade Subban to the Oilers at the 2016 draft rather than for Weber. There may be some great deals that he failed to act upon that we don't know about.

2) There was supposedly a deal involving Pacioretty to LA. I don't know what LA offered to the Habs. The story is that Pacioretty nixed the deal, he wants to wait until he's UFA to get the best deal that he can. Supposedly he's angry about his last contract with the Habs, where he agreed to be underpaid to the tune of ~10-15 million dollars overall, if we're honest.

If so, Pacioretty needs to get a clue. There's this thing called the "sunk cost" fallacy. He will never get back that money. He was a moron and now the money is gone.

Pacioretty may wish to try and score 40 goals this year to maximize his UFA value. However, if he does that he risks getting an injury, which could cost him 20 or 30 million dollars. He's better off signing with a contender and pocketing the security. Further, Bergevin is petty and might not allow him to score 40 goals. I could see the Habs burying Pacioretty on the 4th line (which would tank his trade value), just out of spite.

To be honest here, if MB could have basically swapped Patches for ROR via the Isles 11th or 12th OA pick I think it would have been a steal for us getting a 27 year old premium 2C who is under contract for the next 5 years.

The downside is that it would keep us higher in the standings and cost us higher draft picks.

However , we would have an in his prime solid 2C with prospects 2/3 years away from making an impact, so ROR would still be in his prime when reinforcements arrived.

I would have done that deal for ROR, no hesitation.

 

[LaP]

WTF did Pateryn did to be better than Benn? How many Pateryn games did you even watch last year? Give me a break man...

The thing is i did not even say Pateryn is better than Benn. I said Benn is not better which implies he can be equal .

Outside of maybe Armia none of the trades made by MB in the last 2 years or so improved the team. I don't see how anyone could not see this as a problem. Making lot of trades breaks the chemistry of a team. If you gonna trade the point is to improve the team. Right now we are not progressing.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

The thing is i did not even say Pateryn is better than Benn. I said Benn is not better which implies he can be equal .

Outside of maybe Armia none of the trades made by MB in the last 2 years or so improved the team. I don't see how anyone could not see this as a problem. Making lot of trades breaks the chemistry of a team. If you gonna trade the point is to improve the team. Right now we are not progressing.

Bergevin has been stumbling ever since he refused to do what was needed and fire Therrien back in January 2016.

 

[BLONG7]

Bergevin has been stumbling ever since he refused to do what was needed and fire Therrien back in January 2016.

True...very true. This is when we all saw, Bergevin as being in over his head...no doubt about it.

 

[Habs Icing]

When I see that video, my first guess is that Treliving just really needed to take a piss and that he was rushing to the bathroom.

If Mohammed can't go to the mountain, the mountain will go to Mohammed. MB was there with an outstretched hand.

P.S. I took some liberties with the saying. I hope Francis Bacon will forgive me.

 

[Sorinth]

If Galchenyuk improves in Arizona, and scores 30 goals, 65 points from the centre position while playing a 200-foot game, the response of the Bergevin defenders will be that he has not actually improved.

No they will claim that the trade was the kick in the pants that he needed to finally become serious and listen to what Bergevin was telling him the whole time.

 

[Sorinth]

Galchenyuk can get 65 points , but not by playing a 200' game. If they let him cheat, he can do it, for sure. What will be important is to see what the net result is against opponents, not the point tally on its own.

When Galchenyuk scored 30, MON still lost two nearly out of every three games down the stretch that season, where he tallied more of his points. He and Pacioretty were cheating and neglecting the 200' game the whole time.

And at other times when used at center Galchenyuk has produced and the team was winning lots of games. The start of 2016-2017 for example.

 

[Sorinth]

Getting rid of the contracts

Why is it important to get rid of those contracts before getting rid of guys like Petry though?

Right now Price and Weber will get almost nothing due to injury troubles, bad seasons and their contracts. It makes far more sense to wait, hope for a rebound season and then deal them.

Whereas a guy like Petry it at his peak value so we should trade him now when he's coming off a 40 point, rather then waiting in case he goes back to being a 25-30 point player.

 

[DAChampion]

Why is it important to get rid of those contracts before getting rid of guys like Petry though?

Right now Price and Weber will get almost nothing due to injury troubles, bad seasons and their contracts. It makes far more sense to wait, hope for a rebound season and then deal them.

Whereas a guy like Petry it at his peak value so we should trade him now when he's coming off a 40 point, rather then waiting in case he goes back to being a 25-30 point player.

Other than Halak, have the Habs ever sold high?