Montreal Canadiens: A Look at the 3 GM of the Year Finalists

Something I don’t think anyone will believe me on, but objectively, I think that Marc Bergevin should win this award. The sheer number of moves that Bergevin made this year is staggering enough, but you add the fact that most of them turned out great.

Jake Allen

Jake Allen is, without any hyperbole, is the reason that the Canadiens made the playoffs. Allen was the first solid backup that Carey Price has had for years. It gave Claude Julien and then Dominique Ducharme the option to give Price more days off than ever before.

In the offseason, Marc Bergevin traded a third-round pick and a seventh-round pick for Allen and the Blue’s seventh-round pick. The nice thing was, that the picks the Canadiens gave up were not theirs, belonging to those Blues and the Chicago Blackhawks. Allen had one year left on his contract at $4.35 million and gave the Canadiens the most expensive goaltending tandem in the league. Bergevin then signed Allen to a two-year contract at $2.875 million, mostly to give the Seattle Kraken a goalie to pick from without exposing Price or Cayden Primeau.

It definitely wasn’t just a move for Seattle, as Allen played 29 games this year, which is 51% of Montreal’s games in the regular season. His record wasn’t amazing, 11-12-5, but his stats show that he was better than that. 2.68 goals against and .907 save percentage, which was actually very comparable numbers to Price, who had 2.64 goals against and .901 save percentage.

The problem is that Allen got very little goal support from the team in front of him, having lost a lot of games because Montreal’s forwards could muster only one goal. But the dividends of Jake Allen playing more games than Price is paying off now, in the playoffs. Simply put, Carey Price is not playing this dominant level he is right now without Allen taking a good part of the load during the season.

Corey Perry

The star from yesteryear, winning the Stanley Cup in Anaheim in 2007 and winning the Rocket Richard Trophy and Hart Trophy in 2011, proved last year that he still had it, embarking on a deep playoff run with the Dallas Stars ending the heartbreak in the Finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning. But after the year was done, Perry was without a home, and with a surprising lack of suitors for his hand. That is until Bergevin offered him the league minimum, somehow the highest bid for Perry.

Perry was placed on waivers before the season began, and cleared to start the season on the taxi squad. Thanks to a Joel Armia injury in the fifth game of the series, Perry saw his first action and his first goal, and he never looked back.

Perry is not the superstar he once was early in his career, but at 36 years old, Perry proved he can still play in the NHL. As a bottom-six forward, Perry scored 6 goals and 21 points. Most importantly, Perry avoided any problems with the league’s Department of Player Safety, receiving no suspensions, which is quite the opposite of his reputation.

But the offensive production is the icing on the cake. Perry was brought on for his tenacity, veteran presence, and Stanley Cup-winning experience. And Perry has been good in the regular season, but even better in the playoffs.

In the 14 playoff games the Canadiens have played so far, Perry has 3 goals and 8 points, including the first goal in Game 6 against Toronto, and the game-winning goal in Game 7 in Toronto. He has once again walked that line of physical play in a way that has avoided punishment. And his leadership has been shown throughout the series, taking time before a key faceoff to make sure rookie Alex Romanov knows his assignment and plays. Well worth the $750,000 indeed.

Tyler Toffoli

Could you imagine this team without Tyler Toffoli? This year, Toffoli leads the team in goals and points, with 28 goals and 44 points. The playoffs have been much of the same story, leading the team in points with 12, and tied with Joel Armia with the team lead of 5 goals. Toffoli also has the longest point streak in the playoffs at 8 games, which was broken in Game 3 against Vegas.

Toffoli was a free agent signing in the offseason, poached from the hands of the Vancouver Canucks. Last year, the Canucks had traded for Toffoli with the L.A. Kings for Tim Schaller, Tyler Madden and a second-round pick. Toffoli certainly wasn’t bad in L.A., with 34 points in 58 games. But after being traded, Toffoli scored 6 goals and 10 points in 10 regular-season games. Toffoli missed a big chunk of playoff games, but performed well in the games he did play, with 2 goals and 4 points in 7 games.

After the surprising Vancouver playoff run, everyone expected Toffoli who played really well with the Canucks to resign. But it never came, and Bergevin swooped up and snatched him away. In a league that projects to have a flat cap for a while into the future, Bergevin signed Toffoli to a very friendly 4 year, $4.25 million contract.

Toffoli is 29 now, so will be 33 when his contract expires, which is right when the signs of decline start to show. It ends at the perfect time to resign Toffoli for less money if it works it, or cut him loose if it is not worth it. The strange thing is that this is a contract that Jim Benning and the Vancouver Canucks could afford, but one man’s misfortune is one man’s treasure.