The Montreal Canadiens have a new man at the top of the front office pyramid and he has quite a history in the National Hockey League.
Much has been made over the past week of Jeff Gorton’s short stint as the general manager of the Boston Bruins that saw him acquire Phil Kessel, Milan Lucic and Brad Marchand in one draft and also sign Zdeno Chara and Marc Savard as well as trade for Tuukka Rask all within a few short weeks.
That’s quite the rebuild that was done in 2006 and it is still paying off for the Bruins with Marchand being one of the best wingers in the game.
Gorton then took over a good New York Rangers team and brought them to the Stanley Cup Final in 2014 and oversaw a prolonged contender window. He then sold off many pieces to speed up a rebuild when he saw the team was not quite good enough to continue contending and now the Rangers have quickly become one of the best teams in the league again.
That is a pretty stellar resume for Gorton. He has had successes in the past rebuilding teams and will try to do the same with the Canadiens who are nowhere near competing for a playoff spot this season.