Leafs Florida and about 20 other teams. People have to cool their expectations, be happy with what we did the last 2 years if anyone expected we were going to win the cup this year or last well than I have a bridge to sell you. We're not quite there yet but we had a very good year compared to 22 other teams. How do you think LA and Boston fans feel?
LA has won two cups in the last couple of years, I'm sure their fans are really jealous of us right now...
Fans are very happy with what we've done the past two years, if that's what you got from this thread then you didn't really understand.
You can say he just wasn't going to make promises to the public, fine, still don't like his comments about Galchenyuk saying they didn't feel he was prepared to play center because of his ''struggles'' down low, and that he might never play center. All this after explaining for 10 min how difficult it is to find a big skilled center.
Which brings up a question, Bergevin said Therrien coaches to win every game, now. He's not thinking about winning in 4 years, he wants to win now. Every game.
That means if he feels Galchenyuk at the wing is better for his team to win NOW, then he'll do it. It doesn't matter if it's actually better for Galchenyuk to play center, in order to learn the position at the NHL level, so he can become a solid center down the line. No no, that is not important. What matters is winning NOW.
That's fine btw, I fully expect a coach to feel this way. It also explains why they just stick with Plek-DD there instead of putting Eller up there. Doing that would create more of a hole on the 3rd line that wouldn't be filled by DD. So again, it's better for the team NOW, to keep Eller on the third.
What's sad though is that the GM should see above that. He's supposed to see the big picture. That's why you go through ''transition'' years, which is what Bergy said last year, that he didn't mind taking a step back in order to give more time to youngsters to grow and then take two steps forward. That's what he said last year, which lead me to believe he was going to push for Galchenyuk at center. Now that made sense. But that's not what he said this year, imo he regressed.
Bergevin sounded like a guy that came into this presser prepared to answer questions without really answering them. He pretty much held the same speech he delivered when he first took the job. ''It takes time, go with youngsters and draft, if a trade is available, sure we do it, Therrien is great''.
And what the heck was this comparison to Lundqvist's age? Ya, in 6-7 years, Price can still be great. So what? It's also possible he won't be as effective, and it goes for the rest of the guys.
If we're only reaching contention in 6-7 years there's a major freaking problem. Bergevin missed PK's point completely.
When I hear Bergevin still clinging on to ''building slowly through the draft'', he strikes me as a GM who's just scared to make some meaningful comment.
When I hear him say that Joe Thornton is the last big center to be traded, I wonder where was his head when Seguin and Spezza was traded.
When I hear him say 25-30g scorers are tough to find, I wonder if he remembers that he brought in Ryder and Vanek in two different seasons. I wonder if he realizes Neal was traded for freaking Hornqvist and Spalling.
Ya ya, this isn't Playstation, but there's many examples of trades too. We know they can happen, and they do pretty much every year. He said it himself, under the cap era, players move around a lot. So why does he say that, but then pretend like it's almost impossible to acquire some?
I didn't need him to start making promises left and right. But tell me why he couldn't have come in and said ''we've identified some weaknesses and expect that some players should become available that could help us. It doesn't mean we'll be able to get them here, but we'll definitely do our best.''? Would saying this really be bad? How is it any different than saying they loved Petry and would love to keep him here if they can come to an agreement??
The fans aren't crazy btw, a lot of what the players said yesterday reflected what fans were saying.
