Shedding Moen and Bork are fine, but what has Bergevin done to enhance the core? Jim Nill in Dallas got Spezza and Seguin in a span of 12 months, meanwhile we have a much bigger budget and a better prospect pool and still have DD on the 1st line.
His moves were arrogant and short-sighted.
I don't think comparing MB's moves to Jim Nill's moves are entirely fair. Spezza and Seguin were players who were already being publically shopped by their respective teams at the time. Nill was dealing from a good position as he had equal leverage with both Brian Murray and Peter Chiarelli, as both GM's basically made it public that neither of these players would be returning.
There's really no possible way that Bergevin could have made a fair deal with either Murray or Chiarelli. Not only are all three of these teams in the same conference, they are all division rivals. If Bergevin wanted Spezza or Chiarelli he would have had to cripple the franchise in order to bring them here. It just wasn't possible.
Its not an easy thing to do to bring in a core player from another team. Nill was able to do this because his team was in the western conference and the players he went after were being shopped by non rival teams. The bottom line is, If Jim Nill was the general manager of the Montreal Canadiens instead of the Dallas Stars, there is no realistic way in which he makes those deals.
Now let me ask you, which
established core players are A) in the western conference, and b) being actively shopped? Now, which of these players would you seriously consider acquiring? And finally, which assets would you be prepared to part with in order to acquire these players?
As for Bergevin's arrogant and short sighted moves, I will have to disagree with you again on this one. Bergevin signed Desharnais to a contract extension in his first year as General Manager. At the time of the extension DD had clicked very well with Pacioretty and Cole and most fans were pleased with his performance thus far. DD was coming off of an impressive AHL season with the bulldogs, a rookie season that seen him put up a ppg of 0.512, and a 60 point season to follow. MB didn't want to risk D having another dynamite season and then demanding 5+ million per.
Now, Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but back then it looked like Bergevin was trying to get in front of the 8-ball by signing DD to a shorter cap hit mid season, as Bergevin most likely predicted DD would continue his positive development. As much as I hate DD, I have to say that the extension wasn't completely morbid. There was sound reasoning behind it. MB took a gamble in his rookie year, and only by looking back now we can agree that he lost. This was an example of Bergevin attempting to practice long term vision, not making a short sighted move.
If you want me to go on about the reasoning behind the other moves you mentioned, I can. I'm not saying these moves were the right ones, or even the most logical ones, but they definitely had reasoning behind them. Most of which can be attributed to the salary cap and attempting to put the club in a good cap position. It's easy to sit here today and practice hindsight in order to criticise these moves, but at the time they were nowhere near as unheard-of, short-sighted, and arrogant as you claim.
Nonetheless I'm sure we will have to agree to disagree on this.
