Montreal Canadiens: Marc Bergevin Proves Beyond a Doubt To Be Best General Manager in Canada

Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin has had his ups and downs during his long tenure with the team.

He joined the Canadiens organization in 2012 and has guided the team through nine seasons.

Some of those seasons saw the team crash and land near the bottom of their conference standings. Such was the case in the 2015-16 season and again in 2017-18. It was that time when Bergevin’s job seemed the most tumultuous.

More from Editorials

• Montreal Canadiens: Senators Rebuild At Crisis Point As Kent Hughes Moves Forward
• Montreal Canadiens: Jonathan Drouin Continues Charity Work In Montreal After Leaving Habs
• Montreal Canadiens: Laval Rocket Lineup Going To Be Must Watch
• Montreal Canadiens: Jesse Ylönen Contract Extension Analysis
• Montreal Canadiens: Top 31 Prospects – #31 Quentin Miller

Bergevin allowed Alex Radulov and Andrei Markov to walk as free agents in July of 2017. He tried to replace Markov’s minutes by signing Karl Alzner who struggled in his first season with the team. The Habs GM was not popular in the city of Montreal by the end of the 2017-18 season, but he has rebounded tremendously well.

Since then, though it has only been three years, Bergevin has rebuilt the team with an emphasis on drafting as often as possible and at the same time he managed to build a Stanley Cup contending team.

While teams are handed seven picks each draft, Bergevin did some wheeling and dealing and ended up drafting 11 players in 2018. The next season, the team just fell short of a playoff berth and Bergevin still loaded up on picks, taking ten new prospects at the 2019 NHL Draft.

In 2019-20, Bergevin traded a handful of depth players to add more picks and at one point had 14 selections in the 2020 NHL Draft that was supposed to be held at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Once the event was canceled and moved online, Bergevin swapped a few later picks for immediate help when he sent a third round pick for Jake Allen and a fifth round pick for Joel Edmundson.

He would trade a few more 2020 picks for 2021 selections and ended up taking eight new prospects at the 2020 NHL Draft and currently holds 11 picks for the upcoming 2021 NHL Draft. If he keeps all 11, that is 40 prospects added to the system via the draft in just four years.

Meanwhile, he also made several key trades that led to his team going on a run to the Stanley Cup Final this season. Moving Max Pacioretty to the Vegas Golden Knights for Nick Suzuki, Tomas Tatar and draft pick was pivotal in getting this team deep in the 2021 Playoffs. Adding Josh Anderson for Max Domi paid off well as Anderson scored some of the biggest goals in the playoff run. Allen was terrific as Carey Price’s number two and gave the Habs star net minder enough time off that he was rested and ready for a long postseason.

Signing Tyler Toffoli, Ben Chiarot, Corey Perry as free agents and extending Brendan Gallagher and Jeff Petry allowed this team to contend for the Stanley Cup after taking out the Vegas Golden Knights and rising to the top of the Canadian Division. Not trading away top prospects or first round picks at the trade deadline allows the team to continue to trend in the right direction.

The postseason run clearly showed Marc Bergevin is the best general manager currently working in Canada.

After starting the postseason by falling behind the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1, the Canadiens ran away with the division championship by winning seven straight games over the Maple Leafs and then Winnipeg Jets.

The Jets, led by general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, struggled to score in their series against the Canadiens. This came after they traded Patrik Laine midseason and failed to upgrade their mediocre group of defenders.

The Maple Leafs couldn’t win that elusive fourth game of a playoff series for the fifth consecutive season. General manager Kyle Dubas was gift wrapped a team with an excellent core of forwards to build around and he decided that Joe Thornton, Wayne Simmonds, Alex Galchenyuk, Riley Nash and trading a first round pick for Nick Foligno was the best way to build around their core of forwards.

Those five forwards combined for two goals in the seven game series with the Canadiens. Add that to the fact the Leafs don’t have first, third or fourth round picks in the upcoming draft, and Dubas has clearly overpaid his forwards that can’t carry the team to a playoff series win and there is no question that Bergevin has done a better job setting up the Canadiens for success.

That makes it three straight years that Dubas gave up the Leafs first round pick. One was to get rid of Patrick Marleau’s contract, one was for Jake Muzzin and the most recent first rounder goes to the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for 11 games and zero goals from Nick Foligno.

Ken Holland hasn’t had a ton of time to put his stamp on the Edmonton Oilers, but they were quickly swept out of the postseason, don’t have a ton of cap space to work with to help upgrade the current roster, and are apparently very interested in adding an over-the-hill Duncan Keith with his $5.5 million cap hit for the next two years. Yuck.

Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving is hanging on to his job by a thread. The Flames missed the postseason, and saw almost all of their core players take a step back this year. Matthew Tkachuk, Sean Monahan, Mark Giordano and Rasmus Andersson all played below their expected level.

Do we even need to compare Bergevin to Jim Benning? The Vancouver Canucks general manager is paying so much money to Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussell, Jake Virtanen and Sven Baertschi that he couldn’t find room for Tyler Toffoli. Thanks Jim!

Ottawa Senators general manager Pierre Dorion is doing a decent job of rebuilding the team, but he was also at the helm when they were steered right into the ditch in the first place. Mika Zibanejad and Mark Stone are looking pretty good elsewhere. And why didn’t they keep Anthony Duclair instead of pushing him out the door? How many years left on that awful Nikita Zaitsev contract that let their provincial rivals off the hook?

Long enough that you won’t be able to convince anyone that Dorion is a better general manager than Marc Bergevin right now. Who else has completely rebuilt a team’s prospect cupboards and built a team that contended for the Stanley Cup at the same time?

No one, and that is why Bergevin is clearly the best general manager in Canada right now.