Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin is in his 9th season at the wheel of the Habs organization.
His current team is certainly one that he built and it hasn’t looked great. After a 7-1-2 start, this team has not been able to keep pace in the Canadian Division. Their record of 13-16-7 over the past 36 games is evidence that they just aren’t a great team.
They are still in decent shape when it comes to making the playoffs, but they are far from guaranteed after winning just three of there past 11 games. This isn’t a new phenomenon with a Bergevin built team.
The Canadiens were carried on the back of Carey Price to some success in Bergevin’s initial years, but haven’t been good lately. They missed the playoffs in 2016, 2018 and 2019 and would have missed again last season if not for a 24 team expanded postseason. They are in danger of falling out of the race again this year, which would make it five out of six years where they weren’t good enough to make a traditional postseason.
Even if they sneak in this year it would be with a bit of an asterisk. While they are fourth in their division, if this were a traditional Eastern Conference where eight teams qualify, the Canadiens would be in 10th place in the conference and outside the playoff picture.
That is not a great track record for a veteran general manager. It is one thing to miss the playoffs early on while building something, it is quite another story to make the playoffs for a few years and then regularly fall short.
Without getting into the minutia of the trade deadline, Bergevin has left the Habs with not enough cap space to call up Cole Caufield and not enough recalls left to make use of the depth he worked so hard to build up.
This season is not looking great for the general manager and if the Habs fall out of the playoff race, it should be Bergevin’s last.
If it is, who is in line to replace Bergevin as the team’s general manager? Let’s take a look at the top five options.