I know some like to blame Timmins. He's done some good and some bad work, like most scouts in the league. As such, he definitely deserves blame for some picks, and praise for others. But you can never take a scout's work by itself when talking about prospects' success when development plays such a huge role for most young players.
Why have the Habs never had any top scoring players over the last 30 years?
Organisational philosophy and mentality: what players are told or encouraged to work on, the values that are imparted, the system played, the priorities, etc...
The lastt time we had high scoring was Turgeon and Damphousse with 90+ point seasons... with Mario Tremblay as head coach. Basically, Mario was just opening the bench door for them and they went out and did their thing. They were established offensive players who wanted to play an agressive offensive game. They succeeded, and when the team started loosing a few, Jacque Laperrière told Tremblay that they absolutely needed to tighten up their game, and that's when the fallout with Pierre Turgeon happened. Pierre had game philosophy arguments right on the bench with his coach. Needless to say, he didn't last long in Montreal. You could argue that they traded him to give the emerging Koivu a bigger role, but it wasn't the main reason. There was absolutely room for both of them.
If this team wants a real change of direction, it'll take a major change in organisational philosophy and mentality at every level, even as far as the media around the team. They are all clinging to an outdated mentality and talking about a glorified past instead of moving forward and taking actions necessary to succeed, like in the past. However, the conditions and requirements for success are completely different from the past.