The Montreal Canadiens hired Marc Bergevin in 2012. Seven years into his tenure he has been a polarizing figure for the Habs. Here we break down the five best trades made by the Canadiens current general manager.
The Montreal Canadiens brought in Marc Bergevin after they had enough of Pierre Gauthier as the team’s general manager. The Canadiens missed the postseason in 2012, after losing in the first round of the playoffs the year before. They brought in Bergevin who had been working under Stan Bowman with the Chicago Blackhawks for the previous seven years as a scout, assistant coach and assistant general manager.
It became apparent early on that Bergevin was going to target physicality while keeping a close eye on the salary cap when making signings and trades. His first few free agent signings were gritty players like Colby Armstrong, Francis Bouillon and Brandon Prust.
His first few trades were minor moves that saved salary cap space in the long term. He dealt Rene Bourque to the Anaheim Ducks for Bryan Allen whose contract was up a year earlier. He dealt Travis Moen to the Dallas Stars for Sergei Gonchar who had a higher cap hit but less term than Moen.
We still see those characteristics in Bergevin today. He loves a gritty player and always seems to acquire a few of them every year. He also has not come close to spending to the cap the past two seasons and has plenty of cap space to work with again next season.
When you look at his trade record over his seven years at the helm of the Habs, there aren’t many that jump out at either end of the spectrum as exceptional or awful. Bergevin has certainly made big trades, but I would attest he has not made a lot of very risky trades. When he dealt P.K. Subban, he got a right-shot top-pairing defence man in return.
There aren’t many safer bets in the league than Shea Weber’s steadying presence on the blue line. It would have been far riskier to take on prospects and draft picks which was rumoured to be close to happening at the time. Subban was traded in 2016 shortly after the NHL Draft. There were rumours Subban was being dangled for either the 4th overall pick which was held by the Edmonton Oilers, or the 5th overall pick which the Vancouver Canucks owned.
Bergevin was trying to get a top five pick so he could select Pierre-Luc Dubois, who surprisingly went third overall to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Once Dubois was out of reach, the Subban rumours subsided – for a few days.
Bergevin then traded his top pairing right shot defender for another player who fits the same bill. The same scenario played out when Alex Galchenyuk was traded for Max Domi. Struggling top six forward for struggling top six forward.
A lot of Bergevin’s trades are like this. There are not many trades, even after seven years, where you can say he fleeced the other team, or he made a huge error.
However, there are a handful of trades that helped the Canadiens improve their lineup for sure. Let’s take a look at the best five.