Montreal Canadiens: Should Marc Bergevin’s Job be Safe in the Playoffs?

The Trades

If there is one thing that anyone can agree with when it comes to Bergevin, it’s that he has a better track record with trading than anything else. He has a certain love for one-for-one trades that have fans and media scratching their heads at the time but turn out to be coups for Bergevin.

So it makes sense that Bergevin’s first-ever trade is a straight-up one-for-one. Brendon Nash for Jason DeSantis. Don’t know it? Don’t blame you. Before the trade, Nash played 2 games for Montreal while doing absolutely nothing, and that is the only NHL experience either of them has.

It is only notable for being Bergevin’s first trade and foreshadowing what was to come. Raphael Diaz was traded for Dale Weise, which turned out great. Diaz played 6 total games with the Vancouver Canucks, where Dale “Dutch Gretzky” Weise played 3 seasons in Montreal. He was also part of the trade that brought in Phillip Danault and Alexander Romanov.

The next big trade was the absolute theft of Jeff Petry from the Edmonton Oilers for a second-round pick and a fourth-round pick. Those picks became Jonas Seigenthaler and Caleb Jones. Seigenthaler isn’t even in Edmonton anymore, having bounced from Washington to New Jersey, but was part of the deal that brought Cam Talbot to Edmonton.

Caleb Jones is projecting to be a mid 4 defenceman, which is a step or two below where Jeff Petry has been playing. Despite recent struggles, Petry was on pace for a Norris calibre campaign, and even then he is still tied for third in goals among defencemen and 10th in points. Those are big shoes to fill for Jones.

Then, the next year was 2016, and a big one for Bergevin. He sold off Tomas Fleischmann and Dale Weise to pick up Phillip Danault and a draft pick that would become Alexander Romanov. Fleischmann played only 19 regular-season games and 4 playoff games while recording no playoff points and promptly retiring. Ditto for Weise, who also eventually found his way back onto the Canadiens anyway.

Say what you will about Phillip Danault and his lack of offensive abilities and miscasting as a first-line centre, but no matter how much you dislike Danault, you have to like him more than a retiring Fleischmann and a declining Weise. Romanov is icing on the cake and projects to be a great blue-liner for Montreal for years to come.

Then, the trade that no one would stop talking about, and the conversation is still raging to this day. Bergevin traded P.K. Subban for Shea Weber. You couldn’t ask for two different defencemen. One is a vocal leader that is very offensively gifted. One is a physical defensive defenceman, who is a good leader, but a much more silent one. Also, Subban is 4 years younger.

Anyone following the Habs at that time knew that there was something deeply dysfunctional about the team at the time, and something had to give. Something about coach Michel Therrien, P.K. Subban, and captain Max Pacioretty was not working and Subban was the first casualty to bring in a proven leader and captain in Weber.

The trade looked good for both parties involved at the start, but lately, there has been a drop-off on both sides. Weber’s was more steady and gradual, while Subban’s was precipitous but has shown some signs of getting better.

Weber is stuck in probably his worst season in the NHL, but it is also probably the most physically demanding season in recent memory. And Subban? Well, let’s just put it this way, Subban has fewer goals and points than Weber, and he is definitely worse defensively.

2017 was Bergevin’s worse year as a GM when it comes to trades. But with that being said, as a bad year for a GM, it could be worse.

It started with a small move, Jonathan Racine, and a 6th round pick (Cole Guttman) for Nikita Nesterov. Nesterov only played 13 games for Montreal but scored a goal which is more than Racine or Guttman have mustered. Not bad, a little something for absolutely nothing.

Then Bergevin picked up Jordie Benn for practically nothing as well (Greg Pateryn and Markus Phillips), and swapped David Desharnais (the pretender first-line centre before Phillip Danault) for Brendan Davidson. Then, the trade deadline came through, and Bergevin had a busy day.

All in all, three trades were made. Bergevin picked up Steve Ott, Dwight King, and Andreas Martinsen while giving up Sven Andrighetto, a draft pick that turned into Tim Berni, and a draft pick that turned into Allan McShane.

This article goes into more detail about these moves, but the gist is that Bergevin gave up nothing and gained nothing. But, adding a bunch of big and slow guys slowed down the small and fast Canadiens team, and they underwhelmingly bowed out to the New York Rangers in the first round of the playoffs. Then, probably the biggest whiff in Marc Bergevin’s trading history, Mikhail Sergachev traded away for Johnathan Drouin. Both are top 10 draft picks and both have very high upsides.

Johnathan Drouin was especially tempting for Bergevin as Drouin is a Francophone, and was born in Sainte-Agathe-Des-Monts in Quebec. Drouin is super talented offensively but has never been able to make it work in Montreal for long stretches of time. Sergachev has been a solid top 4 defenceman for Tampa Bay that already has a great d-corps.

But really, outside of that, Bergevin has a pretty good track record of trades. He turned Simon Bourque, someone who has yet to play an NHL game, into Joel Armia and two other draft picks. Trading a 30 goal scorer in Alex Galchenyuk for Max Domi, who had yet to break 20 goals, seemed like a loss, but it turned into a gain. And it was even better when he flipped Domi for Josh Anderson this year.

There are also a bunch of little trades that don’t mean much but are still wins. Getting a third-round pick (Dylan Peterson, who was included in the deal for Jake Allen) for Ilya Kovalchuk seemed impossible when he was bought out in L.A. Marco Scandella was moved away from Buffalo for a fourth-round pick (Daniil Chechelev [that Buffalo only had because the day before they traded current Canadien Michael Frolik]) and then traded a month later for a second-round pick (Jack Finley) and a conditional fourth-round pick.

That doesn’t include the Max Pacioretty trade, where Montreal received Tomas Tatar, Nick Suzuki, and a second-round draft pick (Samuel Fagemo). It is really too early to tell who fully won this trade. Pacioretty has been great for the Golden Knights, scoring at just over a point per game pace so far this year.

But Suzuki has been good for the Canadiens and should be better every year. And Tatar has been part of one of the best possession lines in the NHL. Right now, the trade is looking like a good win-win, but with the possibility to become even better for Montreal.

That is pretty few failures to a lot of successes. And the failures have generally been pretty minor compared to some home runs for Bergevin. So, why are we even having this conversation?

Well…