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Montreal Canadiens: Analyzing Marc Bergevin’s “Reset”

By Ken MacMillan |
MONTREAL, QC - JANUARY 07: Montreal Canadiens Marc Bergevin (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
MONTREAL, QC - JANUARY 07: Montreal Canadiens Marc Bergevin (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
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The Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin infamously stated the team was doing a “reset” in the summer of 2018. How is that going?

The Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin has been at the helm of the Habs for the past eight years. He took over from Pierre Gauthier after a tumultuous season saw the team trade for a rapidly aging Tomas Kaberle on a poor contract, deal Mike Cammalleri away in the middle of a game, hire an English speaking head coach and publicly state he was a placeholder among other interesting ideas.

That was all off the ice. The on ice product was even worse as they fell far enough to get the third overall pick. They took Alex Galchenyuk with that pick and thought they had acquired a future first line centre (but there will be more on him later.)

Fast forward six years and the Canadiens entered the offseason early and secured the third overall pick once again. There were a few glimpses of hope in the interim, including a trip to the Eastern Conference Final and a Hart Trophy and Vezina Trophy for Carey Price. But, there the Habs were with a third overall selection in their hands after a failed season once again.

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This was when Bergevin  publicly stated the team was going through a “reset.” Not a full blown rebuild that would see veterans like Price and Shea Weber leaving town. Just a reset that would start things fresh.

With the Habs about to miss the playoffs for the third straight year, it got me thinking about what the “reset” really meant two years ago. Why use the word reset instead of rebuild or retool or reconstruction?

Maybe, just maybe it was a word that Bergevin and owner Geoff Molson used in their own conversations. Is it possible that Molson and Bergevin agreed to slightly change the direction they were headed and termed it a reset for Bergevin’s job security?

The team was in need of a new direction. They had missed their target of the postseason by a wider margin than a Bryan McCabe slapshot missed the net. When they made the playoffs a year earlier, they had acquired Steve Ott, Dwight King and Andreas Martinsen at the trade deadline to bolster their lineup. Then they lost in the first round because they couldn’t score enough.

Then, in that summer of 2017, Andrei Markov and Alex Radulov left as free agents. Bergevin brought in Karl Alzner, Mark Streit and Ales Hemsky among others to fill the void. In retrospect, it’s not hard to believe they missed the playoffs in 2018.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – JUNE 22: (L-R) Geoff Molson and Marc Bergevin of the Montreal Canadiens attend the 2019 NHL Draft at Rogers Arena on June 22, 2019 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – JUNE 22: (L-R) Geoff Molson and Marc Bergevin of the Montreal Canadiens attend the 2019 NHL Draft at Rogers Arena on June 22, 2019 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

The “reset” begins

Following the 2017-18 season is when the word reset entered the Canadiens lexicon. Isn’t it possible Molson and Bergevin had decided this team was just not good enough at the time, and trying to patch up what is missing with free agents like Alzner, Streit and Hemsky was not going to cut it. So, let’s keep Price and Weber and build through the draft around those two veterans and the young players we already have.

If that is the case, and it doesn’t sound that farfetched to me, then we have to judge Bergevin differently. We have to look at his moves pre-2018 failure of a season and post-2018 failure of a season. It’s kind of like the Habs hired a new general manager but didn’t fire the old guy.

So, what had Bergevin done since the “reset”?

The first thing he did was trade Alex Galchenyuk to the Arizona Coyotes for Max Domi. If we are grading these moves, that one would be an A+. Then he traded Hayden Hawkey for a fifth round pick, dealt a second round pick for a third and a fifth, and moved back in the fourth round of the draft to add another fifth round pick. By the end of draft weekend, the Canadiens had added 11 new prospects.

He drafted Jesperi Kotkaniemi third overall, then added Alexander Romanov, Jesse Ylonen and Jacob Olofsson in the second round. Jordan Harris was taken in the third round and looks excellent at Northeastern University right now.

Then, instead of spending big dollars on free agents like Alzner, Bergevin chewed up a little cap space by taking on Steve Mason’s contract from the Winnipeg Jets. He also received Joel Armia, a fourth round pick and a seventh round pick from the Jets and all it cost was Simon Bourque.

Finally, before the season began, Bergevin traded Max Pacioretty to the Vegas Golden Knights for Tomas Tatar, Nick Suzuki and a second round draft pick. He also picked up Brett Kulak for Rinat Valiev and Matt Taormina and then traded Will Bitten for Gustav Olofsson.

The Canadiens still missed the 2019 playoffs, but by just two points. Domi and Tatar, two of the players acquired in the Galchenyuk and Pacioretty trades, finished first and second on the team in scoring.

BROSSARD, CANADA – MAY 2: Montreal Canadiens General Manager Marc Bergevin and team owner Geoff Molson shake hands after a press conference introducing Bergevin as the new General Manager of the team at the Bell SportsPlex on May 2, 2012 in Brossard, Quebec, Canada. (Photo by Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images)
BROSSARD, CANADA – MAY 2: Montreal Canadiens General Manager Marc Bergevin and team owner Geoff Molson shake hands after a press conference introducing Bergevin as the new General Manager of the team at the Bell SportsPlex on May 2, 2012 in Brossard, Quebec, Canada. (Photo by Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images) /

The Habs add more picks, move out veteran players

At the 2019 NHL Draft, Bergevin again moved a second round pick for a third and a fifth, and shuffled some other draft picks around. He ended up making ten more selections, adding 21 total prospects in two drafts.

Following the draft, Bergevin moved Andrew Shaw to the Chicago Blackhawks for second, third and seventh round draft picks. He also traded Nicolas Deslauriers for a fourth round pick. Instead of using the extra cap space on again veterans in free agency, he elected to stay far away from spending to the cap.

This season, Bergevin continued to add more draft picks into the fold. He traded Mike Reilly for a fifth round pick. Acquired Marco Scandella for a fourth but then traded him for a second. He picked up Ilya Kovalchuk as a free agent and traded him for a third round pick. He traded Nick Cousins for a fourth, Nate Thompson for a fifth and Matthew Peca for a seventh. As a result, the Habs currently hold 14 more picks for the upcoming NHL Draft.

If the Habs keep all of those picks, that will be 35 new prospects added to the system in three drafts. That’s pretty impressive considering they didn’t “rebuild” the team and trade away a bunch of key players in order to get so many picks. They traded a lot of depth pieces and Pacioretty, but got Tatar and Suzuki as well as another second round pick for their former captain.

Center ice was a massive hole for the Canadiens for decades. Bergevin seems to have fixed that for the long-term by drafting Kotkaniemi and trading for Suzuki to begin his “reset.” Left defence was a big hole lately and Bergevin signed Ben Chiarot to fix it short term while drafting Romanov, Harris and Mattias Norlinder who all look like great prospects that could fill that void in the near future.

Now, imagine Marc Bergevin was fired immediately following the 2017-18 season and his replacement did exactly what he has done since then. Us Habs fans would be singing his praises for trading Galchenyuk at the right time, getting a terrific haul for Pacioretty, drafting 21 players in two years and holding 14 more picks for the upcoming draft.

We wouldn’t be worried about this fictional new general manager’s inability to make the playoffs yet. Why? Because we would have “reset” our expectations when the new GM arrived in April, 2018.

There isn’t a new general manager, but that same general manager seems to have a different mandate in the last two years. In the summer of 2017, Bergevin looked like a GM who was panicking to find quick fixes because he was worried about his job security. A year later, he was confidently talking about the reset like he was going to be around here for another decade.

Something changed around that time for Bergevin. It seems he was under different orders. Instead of frantically trying to push a mediocre team over the top, he started to be more patient. Instead of signing veterans like Alzner, he was suddenly satisfied with trading Shaw for draft picks.

It’s a big turnaround and it must have come from the top. Bergevin must have been given an assurance he would be here for a number of years to see this “reset” through.

The on ice product has not been terrific this season, but they looked great in short spurts and have one of the best prospect pools in the entire league. They have lots of prospects coming at every position and 14 more draft picks to make this June when the NHL Draft is held in Montreal.

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That is pretty impressive work since the summer of 2018. I still don’t know with 100% certainty what Bergevin means when he says “reset.” One thing is for sure, I love what he has done with this team since he started using that word.

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