CFN – Marc Bergevin’s 22 year hockey playing career never had the native Montrealer play in his home town.
He has now been chosen to run the team as Owner Geoff Molson pulled the trigger and decided to hire Mr. Bergevin over leading candidate Pierre McGuire.
It’s an interesting pic. Mr. Bergevin is being labelled a really nice guy. He’s never been a GM coming over from Chicago where he had just become Assistant GM under the Bowman’s.
Listening to Tony Marinaro (one of the best broadcasters in Canada at this time in either English, French, or Italian) talk about the decision I have a hunch that he isn’t excited about the choice and frankly neither am I.
I’m not upset. It’s not a mistake. It’s safe. The team needs to make some transitional moves and most likely Mr. Bergevin is the best choice for right now and the choice that will work well under the guidance of Serge Savard.
Big topics this morning is Scott Gomez who if the team is patient will be tradable to a team needed to reach the Salary cap floor or can be sent to Europe and have his cap hit buried. No need to do a buy out and penalize the team unless the new agreement has a clause that allows to dump contracts.
But there are far larger question marks on this team as there is no real core design and of course the choice of head coach should dictate the new direction of the team.
Montreal has some great assets; not too many great contracts and cap issues should always be a concern. They also have the number 3 draft pick which should have an immediate impact.
There’s no reason to go into rebuild mode. The Habs need to do into design mode and carve the roster to the goals of the new GM and new coach.
It should be a very interesting off season for Canadiens fans.
You can post your comments below.
They play their best hockey in the off season.
Michael Farber is hockey writer for Sports Illustrated magazine who talks hockey weekdays at 7:55 a.m. on News/Talk Radio CJAD 800 AM , the Montreal station picked up here. Mike lives there. He says Marc has been a scout for years, has a good reputation, and as a former defenseman played under coach Mark Crawford. Crawford’s name is in the wind as a potential Habs coach.
For me, the NHL season is over but starting Friday we get to watch
players who may play in the big time soon. At 7 p.m. on Sportsnet Rimouski Oceanic play Saint John, N.B. Oceanic was Sidney Crosbie’s last minor league team. This is the Quebec Major Junior championship. Oceanic just beat Halifax Mooseheads. Rimouski is on the St. Lawrence and Oceanic jerseys show that!
One more thing. Rimouski is on the south shore of the St. Lawrence near the Gaspe peninsula and down there the river is 25 kms wide with salt water and big tides, The team has the right to use the Oceanic name and jersey. See http://www.oceanic.qc.ca.
Hello to all i believe pierre mcguire should of been the gm but i was somewhat surprised with marc b as gm, i think the best one right now who is bilingual would be pierre mc guire i know hes been out of coaching for a while but he is still implicated with broadcasting,that is my choice tks.