Montreal Canadiens: Hughes Biggest Strength was Bergevin’s Weakness

Hockey may be Canada’s game, but good luck telling many NHL free agents that.

A lot of the biggest free agents tend to sign with the teams south of the border, and there’s a few reasons for that. First of all, the travel. Since the majority of NHL teams are in the States, there is a lot of border hopping, and especially during the pandemic, the travel is much tougher having to go from Canada to the U.S. and back often.

The other reason is that tax law is very different between the two countries. Without going far into the complexities of all, players with the exact same contract get more money in their contract playing in the United States.

There’s no better example of this than Alexander Radulov. And it was also shows where Bergevin fell short as a General Manager.

Radulov was drafted by the Nashville Predators 15th overall in 2004. The Russian made his NHL debut in 2006, and despite putting up good point totals in his first two years (18 goals and 37 points as a rookie and 26 goals and 58 points the next), he garnered the reputation of being tough in the locker room and left to the KHL.

Four years later, Radulov wanted to return to the NHL, and Bergevin gave him a chance with a 1 year $5.75 million contract, and it worked out great. Radulov meshed well with Pacioretty, scored 18 goals and 54 points, and the team made the playoffs. Nevermind that they got bounced by the New York Rangers in the first round.

Radulov seemed like he loved playing in the electric atmosphere in Montreal. The fans loved his passion, teammates seemed to love him, and in the 2017 offseason, Radulov was becoming an unrestricted free agent.

The Dallas Stars pounced first, and offered him a sizeable 5 year $6.75 million contract with a no move contract. Plus, the prospect of playing with the high powered offensive duo of Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin must be tempting.

But, he allowed Bergevin to make a counter offer and a counter offer he made. Bergevin simply matched the offer.

Now, I am not saying that Bergevin didn’t remember the whole tax problem of playing in Canada. Or that Montreal didn’t dodge a bullet with that contract. The first two seasons were good in Dallas, 78 points in both, but an injury held him to just 11 games last season and this one has been a disaster, 1 goal in 32 games.

But really, that doesn’t matter. The fact of the matter is that Bergevin and the Canadiens wanted Radulov, and couldn’t get it done.

But now, Montreal has Kent Hughes, a former player agent for the likes of Kris Letang, Vincent Lecavallier and Darnell Nurse. This is a guy with a long history of negotiating player contracts and getting what he wants for them. Sure now he’s on the other side of the table, but that experience should prove invaluable.

But that’s not the only time that negotiations have gone sour during Marc Bergevin’s run.

Look no further than last year and Corey Perry. Montreal was the only team to give Perry a contract, and not a part time tryout, and he made it worth their while. After starting on the taxi squad and making the roster due to injuries, Perry gave no reason to take him out of the lineup, and continued his strong play all throughout the regular season and the playoffs.

And after a strong season where Perry established himself as a big member of the leadership core in Montreal, he was looking for a new contract despite being older at 36. The money was set at a cool $1 million, but Bergevin and Perry butted heads over the term. Perry wanted two years, Bergevin would only give one. And now Perry has continued his strong play in Tampa Bay with 10 goals and 20 points.

Would Perry have changed much with the way this season has gone? Probably not, but maybe the team wouldn’t have self exploded as hard as it has with a strong leader in the locker room, but we will never know. Once again, Bergevin had his man, and couldn’t resign him.

But Perry only played one season in Montreal. Its not like Bergevin sullied the name of a Montreal Canadiens legend in the exact same way years ago, did he?

I don’t think people hold Andrei Markov in as high a regard as he should he held in. He played totally in the dark time between Montreal’s last Stanley Cup win and today, and he was really good, despite the team never seeing major success.

The Hall of Fame is out of Markov’s reach, but if anyone in the past 20 years deserves a retired jersey for this era of Canadiens hockey, its Markov with his 119 goals and 572 points in 990 games.

That’s right, 990 games. So close to the big 1,000 milestone. And the reason for that is Marc Bergevin.

Once again, Markov, acting as his own agent, and Bergevin refused to show this legend any respect at all, according to Markov.

"“As an athlete and a person who spent 16 years of my life in Montreal, I would’ve liked that they respected me, that’s all I asked from the team. I’ll be honest with you. There were almost no talks between me and the Canadiens. I received two or three offers from them. They said: ‘You sign or you don’t sign.’ Nobody listened to me and nobody wanted to listen to me.” via Bardown"

Markov went over to the KHL and found success and his team winning the Gagarin Cup.

Could these situations be avoided? Maybe not, but I am not sure with Bergevin. But with Hughes, I am sure that if Hughes wants his man, he is the best General Manager to do it.