Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin will come out of his foxhole at 1:30 p.m. Monday in Brossard to face the media for his season-ending news conference.
It will be interesting to see what he looks like.
Bergevin’s appearance told the story throughout this dismal season that ended with a 38-38-6 record and the Canadiens missing the playoffs for the first time in the four seasons since the 50-year-old took over as GM.
When Bergevin met the media at the team’s annual golf tournament last Sept. 10, he looked fresh, fit and happy in his bright red Canadiens golf shirt. Eight days later, the GM was all smiles again, relaxed and dapper in a grey suit and blue shirt (no tie) as he announced Max Pacioretty was the Canadiens’ new captain.
Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin speaks with the media before the team’s annual charity golf tournament at Laval-sur-le-Lac on Sept. 10, 2015.
But on Oct. 5 — only two days before the season opener in Toronto — Bergevin looked a little rattled, rumpled and a bit unshaven when he faced the media in a white dress shirt and no jacket after Zack Kassian’s truck crashed into a tree in the early hours of the morning and put one of his key off-season acquisitions into the NHL’s substance-abuse program.
Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin speaks to the media about at the team’s training facility in Brossard, outside Montreal Monday October 05, 2015. Bergevin spoke about Zack Kassian’s injuries after being involved in a traffic incident over the weekend.
On Nov. 30, Bergevin was wearing a black turtleneck and grey slacks — and again a bit unshaven — when he announced goalie Carey Price would be out for “at least six weeks” with his “lower-body injury.”
Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin walks away after speaking to the media after practice at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard near Montreal Monday, November 30, 2015. The team announced that goalie Carey Price would be out for at least 6 weeks with a lower body injury.
The next time Bergevin met the media on Jan. 21, the GM looked like he was falling apart. Bergevin had tired eyes, a wrinkled face and a full beard with touches of grey — wearing a brown-and-white checkered dress shirt — as he gave Michel Therrien a strong vote of confidence, insisting he wouldn’t fire his coach this season no matter what happened.
Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin listens to a journalist’s question as he spoke to the media after team practice at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard on Jan. 21, 2016. Bergevin gave coach Michel Therrien a vote of confidence after practice.
By the time the NHL trade deadline came on Feb. 29, Bergevin looked like actor Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away, appearing to have aged 10 years since the start of the season and with a beard that was now out of control. And that was before he saw Stefan Matteau — one of his trade-deadline acquisitions, along with Phillip Danault and Mike Brown — do his 6-foot-2, invisible-man act in a Canadiens sweater.
So, it will be interesting to see what Bergevin looks like Monday afternoon in Brossard. It will be even more interesting to hear what he has to say after the players clean out their lockers earlier in the day.
Coach Michel Therrien — Bergevin’s “foxhole guy” — will also speak with the media Monday, which is a pretty strong indication he’ll be back behind the bench next season, and you can expect social media to explode if the GM does, indeed, make that official.
When the GM gave Therrien his vote of confidence in January, he added: “If it doesn’t work, it’s the fault of Marc Bergevin. Nobody else.”
While much of the blame from fans has been put on Therrien, Bergevin was correct. The fingers now should be pointed directly at him.
Bergevin did nothing to help his coach this season. Trading Brandon Prust for Kassian didn’t work out and neither did signing Alexander Semin. The John Scott trade was an embarrassment to the CH logo, Tomas Fleischmann didn’t work out, Ben Scrivens probably took a couple of years off goalie coach Stéphane Waite’s life, and the Matteau trade was the final blunder as he quickly became a healthy scratch in Montreal while Devante Smith-Pelly put up 13 points, including eight goals, in 18 games with the New Jersey Devils.
Bergevin can’t just keep stockpiling third- and fourth-line character players. He’s going to have to make a major trade to not only shake up the locker room, but to find someone who can play as a top-six forward and put the puck in the net on a consistent basis. Sort of like Smith-Pelly did in New Jersey.
Canadiens’ Alex Galchenyuk, left, celebrates with teammates Greg Pateryn (6) and Max Pacioretty (67) after scoring against the Tampa Bay Lightning during first period NHL hockey action in Montreal, Saturday, April 9, 2016.
And that brings up another problem: the Canadiens’ development of young, offensive players. Alex Galchenyuk finished the season with 30 goals even though he ranked 12th on the team in average ice time per game at 16:15. Galchenyuk averaged only 15 seconds more of ice time than David Desharnais, who scored 11 goals. Galchenyuk’s ice time actually went down from last season, when he averaged 16:25.
Tomas Plekanec, who will earn $12 million over the next two seasons thanks to Bergevin, scored two goals in the final 27 games while leading all Canadiens forwards in ice time with an average of 18:31.
While Therrien shows extreme patience with his veterans, he doesn’t have much with his youngsters. Daniel Carr should never have been sent back to St. John’s after scoring five goals in 17 games on an offensively challenged team. Mike McCarron was sent back to the IceCaps with three meaningless games remaining in the NHL season during which he could have played without a big fear of making rookie mistakes.
Young, talented players are going to make mistakes — but it’s hard to play up to your potential when you’re afraid one of those mistakes will suddenly drop you down a line or two, move you from centre back to wing, or send you back to St. John’s.
That’s Therrien’s coaching style, but Bergevin is his boss and they seem to work as a team. But Bergevin wasn’t a good teammate this season. Injuries definitely hurt, but the GM didn’t make any moves to help his coach or his players in any way and a playoff spot slipped away.
The Canadiens scored 221 goals this season — the exact same number as last season. But they gave up 236 — 47 more than last season when they finished second in the Eastern Conference with a 50-22-10 record.
Price covered up a lot of mistakes last year, but he turns 29 in August, has missed almost an entire season and now seems to have a chronic knee problem. What happens if he gets injured again next season?
That’s a question for the man who was wearing the bright red golf shirt with the big smile last September.
