Montreal Canadiens: Management is a team effort
Revamping the Montreal Canadiens front office is more than just finding the right individuals, but also about putting together the appropriate team.
In professional sports, the main type of team-building who people care about involve the players themselves. Who plays in net? Who scores the goals? Which players are making sure goals don’t go in? It’s all about drafting, developing, and acquiring the right pieces through trades to get the best squad together, and something Marc Bergevin has been trying to bring to the Montreal Canadiens since taking the job.
There’s another kind of team-building that is just as important but not discussed much, and that’s the team in the front office. Individual spots are a concern for a fan base though. When things don’t go well, the head of the head coach or general manager are the first to be called for. Sometimes it goes further than that, and the scouting staff or department of player development gets put into question.
However, the individuals in a team’s management group have to be the right ones to come together and ensure that the decisions being made are always beneficial. That falls on Geoff Molson. The best hockey minds coming together on any and all fronts will be just as important as the players on the ice. Sorry to sound hypocritical here, but a team can have the best player in the world, and still be poor if it has a front office that makes poor choices (e.g. Edmonton).
The Vegas Golden Knights are a clear example of what a good team in management can do. They took a bunch of misfit players and turned them into conference finalists in their first year of existence! We can talk about William Karlsson, Erik Haula, Jonathan Marchessault, and the seasons they’ve had, but George McPhee and Gerard Gallant deserve a lot of credit.
It doesn’t stop there. Kelly McCrimmon, Misha Donskov, and Murray Craven have all come together to form a reliable front office in Vegas.
The Montreal Canadiens could learn a lesson from the Golden Knights in terms of giving previously thought to be poor or misunderstood players a chance. But the biggest takeaway from their season is that building up the management is equally as important. Adding Gerrard Gallant was a step, let’s see what other changes are made.
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