The Montreal Canadiens cut ties with former general manager Marc Bergevin back on November 28th.
They immediately hired Jeff Gorton to take over as the team’s vice president of hockey operations, but still needed to fill out the front office.
They took their time, but finally hired Kent Hughes to be the Canadiens 18th general manager in its long history.
Hughes was a player agent who is best known for representing star players like Patrice Bergeron and Kris Letang. He does not have front office experience like Gorton, but the two will work in tandem and bring different perspectives to the Bell Centre offices. Gorton has traveled the usual scouting, assistant and then general manager path while Hughes has jumped from the opposite side of the table to work for a team and not the individual player.
Hughes has experience negotiating some monster contracts, but he has always been the one arguing for the player to get more money and more term in a deal. He did quite well helping Bergeron earn over $90 million in his career while Letang has made close to $70 million in his NHL lifetime.
Both happen to be from the Montreal area and are free agents after this season. Makes you wonder if their former agent turned Canadiens general manager set this up all along….
But Bergeron won’t leave Boston and Letang isn’t moving from Pittsburgh… right?
Anyway, I digress.
The point is, Hughes has negotiated some pretty great contracts in his time as an agent. Of course, it isn’t the hardest job in the world to get a team to give Bergeron a bunch of money. If anything, the Bruins star has outplayed his $6.875 million salary over the past eight years.
But Hughes has gotten some players way overpaid in the past, which is his job.
Here are the three contracts that prove Hughes is a genius when it comes to negotiating contracts for his players.