Montreal Canadiens: Analyzing Marc Bergevin’s Inability to Upgrade Habs LD

The Montreal Canadiens biggest need is for a true top pairing left defenceman that can play big minutes with Shea Weber. Looking at all the LD that Marc Bergevin has acquired shows how they failed to improve this position.

The Montreal Canadiens had a miserable season in 2011-12. They missed the playoffs by a wide margin, fired their coach and put Randy Cunneyworth in an impossible situation, they traded players in the middle of games, they acquired Tomas Kaberle for some reason and finished with 78 points.

At the end of the season, they decided to also fire the general manager and replaced him with Marc Bergevin. Bergevin had a lengthy NHL career, playing close to 1200 games as a left defenceman. Ironically, since becoming a general manager, his largest blemish has been his inability to find a true top pairing left defenceman.

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When Bergevin was hired, the Canadiens boasted Andrei Markov, Josh Gorges and Kaberle as left defenders. They also had Alexei Emelin but he had mostly played the right side at that point. They also already had Jarred Tinordi and Nathan Beaulieu in the pipeline and they looked like future NHLers on the left side of the Habs defence.

In his first offseason as Habs GM, Bergevin signed Francis Bouillon to a one-year contract at $1.5 million. This pushed Kaberle out of the lineup and gave the team a left side of Markov, Gorges and Bouillon. Bouillon played all 48 games in the 2013 season, scoring one goal and nine points. Bergevin acquired Davis Drewiske at the trade deadline for a 5th round pick and he added a goal and three points in nine games but didn’t suit up in the postseason.

Bouillon was fine as a third pairing defender and Drewiske did little to help the team down the stretch. After being quickly taken out of the playoffs by the Ottawa Senators, Bergevin decided to re-sign Bouillon and Drewiske and also sign Doug Murray to a one year contract. It basically gave the Canadiens three of the same player to play in front of Beaulieu and Tinordi.

Beaulieu and Tinordi were worked into the lineup for about 20 games apiece, but Murray lumbered his way to 53 games and Bouillon struggled to 52. Bergevin also re-signed Markov to a three-year extension during the season (yay) and Emelin to a four year deal (nay).

Following the 2013-14 season, Bergevin cleared out the dead weight by letting Bouillon and Murray walk as free agents. He also traded Gorges to the Buffalo Sabres. This would allow Emelin to return to his natural side and open up a spot for Beaulieu in the lineup. During the season though, he would trade Rene Bourque to the Anaheim Ducks for Bryan Allen and Travis Moen was shipped to the Dallas Stars for Sergei Gonchar.

Both trades were basically cap dumps but Gonchar played some useful minutes before running out of gas down the stretch. He would retire following the season.

The Habs would enter the 2015-16 season leaning on the same trio of Markov, Emelin and Beaulieu though Beaulieu wasn’t developing as quickly as originally hoped and Emelin didn’t look the same since knee surgery, though he did get that contract extension while he was injured. Bergevin added Mark Barberio to the fold on a one-year deal worth $600,000.

Price was injured early in the season and the defence (especially the left side) was not good enough to lead the team to wins without a Hart calibre net-minder behind them. They would acquire Victor Bartley from the Nashville Predators in an odd three-way deal that also included the Arizona Coyotes and John Scott landing in Montreal. Bartley played nine games in his Habs career.

Barber earned a two-year extension and the Habs went with the same group on the left side in 2016-17. First round pick Mikhail Sergachev made the team out of training camp but played just four games before being sent down. Nikita Nesterov joined the team before the trade deadline and played 13 games, scoring five points. Jordie Benn was also brought in and played really well during the final 13 games.

The Habs were knocked out of the playoffs in six games to the New York Rangers and big changes were on the way for the left side of the defence. To this point, I would say Bergevin didn’t really upgrade the position he used to play, but he didn’t make it any worse. He had turned Markov, Gorges and Kaberle into Markov, Emelin, Beaulieu and Benn, though Benn was playing the right side many nights at that point.

Then came the offseason of 2017. We could no longer say that Bergevin didn’t make the left side of the defence any worse after the 2017 offseason.

First, Bergevin traded Sergachev to the division rival Tampa Bay Lightning for Jonathan Drouin. Two days later he traded Beaulieu to the division rival Buffalo Sabres for a second round pick. Four days after that, the Habs lost Emelin in the Vegas Golden Knights expansion draft. All the while, Markov was a pending unrestricted free agent and negotiations were not going well.

Before free agency opened up, Bergevin acquired David Schlemko from Vegas for a 5th round pick. Once free agency began, Bergevin threw a pile of money at Karl Alzner, signing him to a five-year contract with a cap hit of $4.625 million per year. He also signed Joe Morrow and Matt Taormina that day.

At the end of July, when it became apparent that Markov was not coming back, Bergevin signed Mark Streit to a one-year contract. Streit was 40 years old and had clearly slowed considerably. He would also sign Jakub Jerabek out of the Czech Republic.

I guess this left the Habs with a left defence depth chart led by Alzner and followed by Benn, Schlemko, Streit, Morrow and Jerabek in order. This, umm, well it didn’t work. Alzner played all 82 games but didn’t play them well and was a healthy scratch the following season opener. Benn played okay but not as well as his initial stint with the Habs. Schlemko was mostly just hurt, Streit played two games before everyone realized he was done, Morrow and Jerabek cycled into the lineup at times but failed to prove they are NHL regulars.

The 2017 offseason of left defencemen in Montreal was a science experiment that completely blew up in Bergevin’s face. The only bright spot from the 2017-18 season was the emergence of 4th round pick Victor Mete. He played 49 games and though he failed to register a goal he showed an offensive punch that was lacking otherwise on the team’s left defence.

Bergevin traded for Mike Reilly around the trade deadline in 2018 and though he has great skating, he can’t defend well enough to be a regular at the NHL level. He clearly liked Benn and Mete, and on the eve of the 2018-19 season he acquired Brett Kulak from the Calgary Flames to fill out the left defence. The trio of Mete, Kulak and Benn actually played quite well in the second half of the season.

Benn left via free agency following that season and was replaced by Ben Chiarot who came to town with a three-year contract at $3.5 million per year. Though Chiarot started slowly, it is hard to criticize the decision to sign him as he has played so well that past few weeks, capped off by an overtime game winner last night.

Otto Leskinen was also signed last summer and has played well in his limited NHL action to date.

To sum it all up, Bergevin’s biggest blemish has been his inability to fill the hole on left defence. He basically waited too long to see if the Markov-Emelin-Beaulieu trio was going to work before deciding to throw the baby (Sergachev, Markov) out with the bathwater (Beaulieu, Emelin).

When he did that, he didn’t have much of a contingency plan in place and the team has been scrambling for three seasons now to build a left defence on the fly.

Where we can see things coming together is in the prospect pool. The Habs love Alexander Romanov who could be playing in Montreal as soon as next season. Along with him, they have Mattias Norlinder, Jordan Harris, Jayden Struble and Gianni Fairbrother who are all intriguing left defence prospects. They won’t all become top four defenders, but they do signal hope that there is light at the end of this very long tunnel that Bergevin dug in the summer of 2017.