Excellent question. I enjoy these questions and yes they should be in the forums but hardly anybody reads the forums. Capfriendly, should make the forums a bigger platform or easier to access with maybe a logo button or something. Now back to the question.

From 2012 to 2016, I really wanted Bergevin fired. But also Trevor Timmons. Heck I remember calling my friend Stephan Lebeau and telling him David Fisher will never play one game in the NHL, yet MTL drafted him in the 1st round. Now I believe something happened around 2016. Because Bergevin's style changed to resemble Sam Pollock, the legendary GM of the Habs that many people aspiring to be GM's will study. He was able to not chase big free agents, pluck underperforming players and also move Hab players for draft picks. Since 2017, MTL has had 36 picks. Especially in the last 3 drafts, MTL should have had 21 picks but had 29. Those extra 8 picks, adds a full extra year of draft picks, as teams get 7 picks each year.

So MTL has statistically given themselves better options of having players make it. Each day I see all kinds of trades for LD's, we have Romanov and Edmundson that are very solid and locked players. Chiarot is the weakest this year. Forget about Mete and Kulak. People fall in love with them because they can skate. Mike Reilly can skate like the wind, but produced little, so he is in Ottawa now. Habs have Guhle, Fairbrother, Norlinder, Struble, Harris, Leskinen, Schueneman that all shoot left and can play. Out of those 7 players, 2 will make it. So we can stop with LD trades.

RD, Petry is solid, Weber has lost a step but still efficient plus 5 more years after this year. We have Fleury and Brooke. If one of those guys cannot make it, then we have a need for a RD.

Up front, I divide the 12 into 3 groups. Top 9 wingers, which equals 6 players. Down the middle, your Centres and Your 4th line. Locked in and or keepers are Anderson, Drouin, Gallagher, Toffoli. That leaves 2 openings. I believe one of the openings will be Caufield (2022) and then the following year Ylonen (2023). Rounding out your top 9. I have always liked Tatar but if you sign him where do the two just mentioned play? unless you sign him for 1 or 2 years, but he will fetch something bigger elsewhere and MTL can flip him for picks. Armia, has sick hands, his keep aways are unreal. I understand why Dominic is using him more and trying to get him going. The potential is there. Again, where does he play in coming years?

Now to tackle the Centres. We all see the crazy potential in Suzuki and he will only get better. MTL has been screaming for someone like him for 20 years. Next is KK, lately people are yelling at Bergevin for not drafting Tkachuk but remember MTL only got Suzuki after that draft was over, so picking KK was a massive need. We also see the potential in KK. He is still only 20 years old. He will be a solid player in about 2 to 3 years until he is 30-32. So it was a very good pick. Not saying Tkachuk will not have a good career, he will and he will be the next captain. Now we get to Danault. We all love him, good guy, good player but for 3 years he was the #1 Centre and the most he gave you was 12-13 goals in a full 82 game season. People have said yes but Lemaire was a defensive Centre between Steve Shutt and Guy Lafleur. Go look at Lemaires goals each year, much higher than Danault. He is a 3rd line Centre, a very good one. Will he accept that? probably not because it means minimum $2 Million less per season. So, I see him gone next season. I would like to keep him but I believe he is gone by seasons end. Evans is very smart and a player I have known since 2012 when he was in my hockey camps. Very cerebral player, vastly improved on face off's. He is a good 4th line Centre but would not be surprised if he plays most of his career as a 3rd line Centre. So Montreal needs 1 more Centre should Danault leave. I have watched Poehling in Laval and so far I am not convinced. He shows flashes but lacks consistency. Another guy is Vejdemo. He is good on face off's, excellent speed, good passer. When he plays north south, he is dynamic and noticeable. When he plays west east he disappears. Joel is working on that with him.

That leaves Lehkonen, Byron as 4th line wingers. They are actually really good but as we all know paying Byron $3.4 and Lehky $2.4 to play on 4th line is a lot of bacon. So do you bring in wingers that love to hit and you can pay $750 per season? So I would say keep Bergevin because his last three drafts have been good and he has brought in good mostly players.

I wrote a detailed response to this and I guess it was too long because when I hit submit, it did not post? weird! I am not going to type it all out again.

Coles Notes:

2012-2016 Bergevin should have been fired or at least Trevor Timmins. Last 3 drafts 29 picks instead of 21. The extra 8 picks is the equivalent of an entire extra year of drafted players. So either Bergevin or Timmins or both have figured things out, because the last 3 and even 4 drafts have been measurably better. So for this reason, I would not fire him.

i see it its on the second page

ya I just saw it there about 30 seconds ago. I am confused why or how but at least it is there! lol

I say keep Bergevin, the only fully bad move he’s made is the Alzner signing ( you could argue Drouin and Shaw trade maybe Price extension too ) and he’s given the coach a cup contending team so I say Bergevin keeps his job until he drops off a cliff or he’s at the point where we are just playing musical coaches

Blues say no. None of those pieces entice the Blues.

I don't think Bergevin will get fired. His contract ends after the 2021-2022 season, so it will really depends if we are making the playoffs this year and/or next year. He might just not want to extend, or Molson will just hire a new GM after Bergevin contract. I always like Marc, the only thing I dont like is that he gets too close personally with players. The Shaw contract, Price contract, Byron extension, even maybe Gallagher. Players that he really likes, he gave them too much... but Bergevin got lucky sometimes, he wanted to sign Bonino over 4M but NSH won (good thing). Wanted to sign Lucic offering more than 6M (Lucic didnt want to come here, good thing). He would had go against Okposo but Okposo didnt want to come play here at all (6M he signed). The Alzner signing and Sergachev vs Drouin trade and Price contract extension are is only bad move tho

Yes, Bergevin has been good overall, and with the right coach this is a cup contending team

if he can acquire 1 game changer, like a taylor hall, and one top 4 puck moving d-man, this team can make it deep.

I don’t think that Bergevin has any problem with being too close to his players. If that was the case, Byron wouldn’t have been placed on waivers, Danault would already be signed, and he wouldn’t have traded away nearly as many people as he already has. All the contracts you mentioned were fair and good at the time, and if you look at his trade record, Marc is the last person to become too attached to a player.

And you can criticize some of his pre-2018 ideas of what constitutes a good team and how to win, but he’s adapted along with the rest of the NHL, and no one is thinking of giving the Lucics of the world big money. Bergevin isn’t brining in Steve Otts or Andreas Martinsens anymore, instead going with the Ilya Kovalchuks and Corey Perrys, or brining up players from the pipeline like Jake Evans.

So I think that Marc Bergevin has been flawed in the past (as were most of the NHL), but he’s been just as good at his job as any GM in the past 3 years.