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.
Pierre McGuire
Whether you like listening to him during hockey broadcasts or not (many don’t) there is no questioning that McGuire is a wealth of hockey knowledge. He has been involved in the NHL for three consecutive decades in many different roles.
While McGuire primarily has been a broadcaster during that time, he also has some time served on NHL benches. He won two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins as a scout in 1991 and as the team’s assistant coach in 1992.
Sharing a bench with Mario Lemieux and Scotty Bowman has to teach someone a thing or two about hockey, doesn’t it?
McGuire also had a short stint as the assistant coach and assistant general manager with the Hartford Whalers before becoming a scout for the Ottawa Senators when they were an expansion franchise. All of that experience is well in the past though, as McGuire has spent most of the past 25 years working in broadcasting the NHL.
While a lack of recent experience running an NHL team goes against him, McGuire has recently interviewed for jobs in front offices, including with the Montreal Canadiens before they elected to hire Bergevin.
While McGuire is a bit of a polarizing figure on television, his experience, work ethic and knowledge of the game make him an interesting candidate to replace Bergevin.
Mathieu Darche
Mathieu Darche was a scrappy depth winger for the Montreal Canadiens for three seasons. Born in St.-Laurent, Quebec, Darche got to play for the hometown team at the tail end of his NHL career.
Before that, he had played four seasons with McGill and was named the Most Outstanding player in Canadian college hockey in 2000 after scoring 72 points in 33 games. Darche has plenty of ties to the Montreal area, as he worked for six years as the vice-president of sales and marketing for Delmar International, a company based out of the Montreal area.
Darche moved on from that job to become the Director of Hockey Operations for the Tampa Bay Lightning in May. 2019. That means he has been the right hand man for general manager Julien Brisebois for the past two years. The Lightning, you may recall, won a Stanley Cup in that time and seem poised to go on a deep run again this year.
Darche’s job has been to help Brisebois with every facet of his job. That means negotiating contracts, scouting players around the league, keeping an eye on how every move affects the salary cap and budgeting for the team. He would have played a big role in acquiring players like Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow last season who played big roles in the Bolts winning the Cup.
He also would have had to crunch the numbers in the three-way deal that landed David Savard in Tampa Bay when many thought they couldn’t make it work under the salary cap.
Darche’s first taste of the managerial side of the game came when he played a big role in the 2012-13 labour negotiations as a representative of the NHLPA.
He is now a Stanley Cup champion as a key member of a team’s front office. It might be a big jump for him to take on the Montreal Canadiens GM job, but there are ways the Habs could soften his landing.
Darche could take over Bergevin’s job as GM, but to help show him the ropes, the Canadiens could hire a veteran Special Advisor or President of Hockey Operations. Someone like Serge Savard, who has done the job before and could teach Darche the finer points of being the man in charge of the Canadiens.
Roberto Luongo
Similar to Darche, Luongo has a short career as an executive, but a bright future. If he were hired, the Canadiens could look to also bring in a veteran like Serge Savard, Jacques Lemaire or Jacques Martin to help with the learning curve.
This is what the Toronto Maple Leafs did with Kyle Dubas. Lou Lariorello, and Mark Hunter, were around for a few years to show Dubas how to run an organization and then Dubas took the reigns himself.
That could be the Luongo-Lemaire dynamic in Montreal.
Luongo is currently employed as the Florida Panthers Special Assistant to the GM. This is his second season in this role after his retirement from playing goal. He has also been named as the GM of Team Canada at the upcoming World Championships and will be part of the managerial team for Canada at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Those jobs aren’t just handed to anybody. Clearly, some of the top managers in hockey see something special in Luongo.
If Geoff Molson does too, he might need to make a move sooner than later. Bill Zito was named the Panthers GM at the start of this season, but they seem to be grooming Luongo for a role within the organization.
Convincing Luongo to leave Florida might be difficult, but the native of Montreal might be intrigued enough at the prospect of running the Canadiens organization that he would consider a move next season.
Martin Brodeur
Martin Brodeur, like Luongo, was an exceptional goaltender in the NHL and he also appears to being prepared for a large role with his current organization.
Brodeur played all but seven of his NHL leading (among goalies) 1266 games with the New Jersey Devils. He is currently serving as the team’s Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations. He also acts as a Senior Advisor for the team.
This is Brodeur’s third year in the front office of the Devils, after working with the St. Louis Blues for three seasons as the Assistant General Manager and one year as a Special Advisor. So, he has plenty of experience working on the managerial side of an organization.
Growing up in Montreal, and being among the greatest goaltenders to ever play the game, Brodeur would come with plenty of pedigree. Taking over the role as general manager of the Montreal Canadiens isn’t for the faint of heart, but Brodeur has passed every test he has faced in hockey.
It would be a bit of a risk for Geoff Molson to pass over a former great Montreal Canadiens goaltender like Patrick Roy, and bring in a former great New Jersey Devils goaltender to be the Habs GM. However, Roy’s time in the front office with the Colorado Avalanche didn’t go well as there were plenty of rumours of turmoil as he tried to wrestle control away from Joe Sakic, and the team didn’t progress well under his watch as head coach.
Brodeur has paid his dues over the past seven seasons in managerial roles at the NHL with the Blues and Devils. He would be far more prepared for this role.
Martin Madden
If Molson really is going to fire Marc Bergevin and bring in someone else, it might make sense to go with a veteran executive.
Pierre McGuire has some experience but it was a long time ago. Luongo, Brodeur and Darche all have a little experience, but they might need an advisor to help them, or they just might not be deemed quite ready for a prominent role with the Montreal Canadiens.
If Molson wants to be a little safer, and take an experienced executive, he could go with Martin Madden Jr. He is currently working for the Anaheim Ducks as the team’s Assistant General Manager, but he has a long history working for NHL teams.
Madden was first hired by an NHL team way back in 1998 and worked as a scout for a decade with the New York Rangers and then Carolina Hurricanes. In 2008, he was hired to be the Director of Amateur Scouting for the Anaheim Ducks. He has been with the Ducks ever since, and was promoted to AGM at the start of this season.
In his 12 years running the amateur scouting for the Ducks, Madden routinely stocked up the prospect cupboards. In his first draft with the team, he plucked Kyle Palmieri in the first round and Sami Vatanen in the fourth. The following year he selected Cam Fowler in the first round and Devante Smith-Pelley in the second.
In 2011, Madden instructed the Ducks to take Rickard Rakell in the first round, John Gibson and William Karlsson in the second and Josh Manson in the sixth. Hampus Lindholm was taken 6th overall in 2012 when a lot of people thought Slater Koekkoek or Derrick Pouliot should have been picked. Frederik Andersen was taken in the third round that same year.
The Ducks took Shea Theodore 26th overall in 2013, making the Canadiens look bad for selecting Michael McCarron one slot earlier. In 2014 the Ducks only had five picks but they found four NHL regulars in Nick Ritchie, Marcus Pettersson, Brandon Montour and Ondrej Kase.
It’s not the Scouting Director’s fault if all of these NHL regulars get traded away within a few years.
Madden has made a habit out of adding two NHL regulars at every NHL Draft, if not more. That’s something that can’t be said for the current Habs managerial team. If a change is mercifully made at season’s end, expect the Quebec City native, and son of former Nordiques GM Martin Madden, to get a lot of attention.