Recrutes

Recrutes: Hockey scouting from a professional perspective from Grant McCagg and Habs coverage from a 33 year veteran covering the NHL from Brian Wilde.

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Call Of The Wilde: A Blueprint For Recovery

November 19, 2017

By Brian Wilde

It’s always the talent. Or at least almost anyways.

It’s common for fans and media and even management to search for answers in thoughts like teamwork, dedication, chemistry, sticking to the game plan, but these things are the result when success is achieved. The actual beginning of success in the cause and effect of sports was, is, and always will be talent.

Nothing touches talent in importance, and the Montreal Canadiens are lacking it.

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About Brian Wilde

Brian Wilde has worked in hockey since he was 20. He was the rink side host for the Edmonton Oilers at CTV and Ottawa Senators for Sportsnet. He was also lead reporter on the Montreal Canadiens for 17 years at CTV Montreal.

View all posts by Brian Wilde

  • Shawn Couch says

    I agree Brian that a turnaround does not need to take years but I am somewhat concerned that MB might now be the right guy for the job and if you step back and look at some of the logic he applied as you are pointing out in the article about overhauling the 4th best D in the league while not upgrading the offense literally he made the team worse. I understand why he traded for Drouin and having a Francophone star on the team but he gave up a D man that we desperately needed with nobody to replace him. We would have been better off keeping Sergachev as it just created another hole while adding to really our winger depth. Drouin is a winger that they are trying to make into a centre. The overhaul on the D also didn’t make sense. He gave away Beaulieu for a 3rd rounder because they feared losing him in the expansion draft. Then they lose Emelin in the expansion draft and replaced him with a higher price tagged Alzner who is actually worse than Emelin and costs more. I understand there was not a ton of good free agents available but MB would have know what the free agent crop looked like heading into the offseason. Morrow/Davidson are also no better than Beaulieu. I am also not a fan of the Petry signing either. He had a great playoff run when he arrived but since then has been wildly inconsistent but gets top pairing minutes. This team as you say could be fixed with a proper retool but again I am not sure we have the right guy at the helm to fix it.

  • Pino Marcovecchio says

    Another interesting article Brian, thank you. Not sure if you omit it on purpose or not but there is one glaring unanswered question:, do you leave the rebuilt to the current management team. It’s easy for us to point at Bergevin but he is surrounded by many others. I would love to hear your take on the others, from Dudley, Mellanby, Timmins, Ramage, etc.

    • Brian Wilde says

      I think I did say that Bergevin isn’t tired in my view by saying that Poile was an idiot and Yzerman missed playoffs and many teams turn it around.

      Though confidence is shaken a bit in a series of blunders, I don’t like anyone better one bit.

      I don’t have knowledge of one decision that Brisebois has made. He has done nothing that I have a record of. AHL is a figurehead. I would want to hear his player evaluation. He could be a hockey dummy. At least with McGuire you can say oh that’s dumb or that’s smart.

  • Alex Pelletier says

    I think you are absolutely spot on with this analysis. This thing can assuredly turn around as soon as next season, things change incredibly fast in this league and this team already has many good pieces. I just really hope management is willing to make the difficult move of sacrificing the depth on the wing to acquire that prospect at center. In my view Pacioretty must be the key piece to any such deal as his combination of value, contract and age make him the perfect candidate for a trade at this time. Do you agree he should be the piece to go?

    • Brian Wilde says

      I think any assets of strength on the wing need to be sacrificed to attain strength at center.

      In descending order most to least important
      Top center. Top defenceman. Second top defence. Goalie

      Yes goalie is that low because top on league is 930 but tenth is not much lower at 920. Small amount.

      But look at the difference in points between the top center and lower ones. Big difference.

  • David Wood says

    This administration has shown they are not capable of properly scouting other teams’ talent. They can no longer be trusted, and there will be no turnaround on their watch. They have overseen the passing of the mantle of “Canada’s team” from the Habs to the Leafs. If you don’t believe me, I work in a Montreal pub, and the number of Leafs jerseys vs Habs jerseys last night was several orders of magnitude higher than 5 years ago.

    What the Montreal Canadiens should be doing, before it’s too late, is investing their not-insubstantial wealth into making their scouting and player development among the top-5 in the league. A never-ending influx of young talent will keep a team competitive even if some veterans move along to richer pastures. Instead, this administration plays it safe, brings in career minor-leaguers to fill seats in Laval, and stubbornly keeps giving primary icetime to veterans, regardless of productivity.

    If they don’t act soon, the money will eventually start to dry up, and then the job of a rebuild will be a very large undertaking indeed.

  • Mike DiSandolo says

    Great article and puts a lot of things into perspective. While I don’t think letting Bergevin go is the answer, the D corps is in his image and somebody at that round table needs to tell him we have enough 5-6 D men.

    Weber is a solid number 1 but I miss those times when Subban touched the puck and the Bell Centre became electric.

    Bring in some of the young guns now and let them get some NHL miles on their skates. And keep Lindgren as back up when Price returns, he will give the team a chance to win every time they rest Price.

  • Trevor says

    It boggles my mind that so many seem to think that this team is as bad as their record suggests. Anyone that thinks they are as bad as their current record should consider what would happen to any team if their #1 goalie was playing well below his ability then gets hurt, #2 goalie gets hurt and then are faced with starting their #3 goalie on a regular basis. Add on top of that the seemingly endless string of fluke goals against like hasn’t been seen before and it’s no surprise they are where they are. All that considered it’s also easy to see where they could be if Price comes back and plays as he should. Have they been good this year… most nights no. Can they be better… hell yeah.

  • Ralph Segreto says

    Good summary Brian, but astute fans have been aware of the weaknesses of the team and management’s failure in addressing them. Bergevin can’t complain that it’s too hard to get a center when you see some change teams every season. I truly believe Bergevin is forcing a near elite winger into a center spot to quieten his critics that he can’t get a center. And it’s that attitude which has gotten this team to this point. They have never explained the Subban deal. We have conflicting stories on the Radulov negotiations, and perhaps the worst move, letting Markov walk to save 5.5 or 6mm in cap space. Then there are the Price injuries. Can’t we just get an honest answer and still protect the player? I find it very difficult to trust Mr Bergevin and would not want him implementing the tactics you’ve suggested above. I fully agree with you on those points.

  • Jens Nyberg says

    I think that Drouin gonna need some more time. He’s adjusting to center position and has all the skills needed. He has looked pretty solid on defense but hasn’t fired on all cylinders offensively. But lets be honest, the Habs are gonna need a Tavares type of #1C to be competitive for Lord Stanley. Drouin is’nt enough. Tavares/Drouin/Pholeing as one-two-three then we can talk.

    If the opportunity is there trade what ever in needed for Tavares to happen. Danault,Chucky and even maybe Patches and som picks.

    The cap space also has to be used for a 1:st and 2:nd pairing D. Brian is talking about who’s gonna play with Weber, yes that is correct, but whos gonna play in the 2:nd unit?

    Webers contract is not the problem here, the problem is that Petry and Alzner takes up $10M of the cap, that is crazy. Get rid of both of them ASAP.

    But for this to happen, Marky-Marc has to use witchcraft on the rest of the GM:s

  • Matt Bryson says

    love the “moving d line. they need to embrace skill. the team is getting lapped nightly. hard to watch. I have lost faith in MB for the reasons you outlined, plus last year’s trade deadline. he is out of touch with what is working imo.

  • Serge Levy says

    Ultimately, the failure to resign Radulov is the key. Habs lost a scoring forward, who drives the puck forward but also made it more difficult to move Galchenyuk for a top 4 D-men. There about a 100 of them, any would do.

    If habs make a couple of moves (Plekanec, Galchenyuk + any of the small forwards) for picks and prospects, then a lot of pressure will dissipate. Who knows maybe then the team will score the first goal of a game and go on winning streak.

  • Michael Cordeiro says

    Great read Brian. I just hope the right pieces Will become available sooner than later.

  • Scott Murray says

    Another bang-on assessment, Brian, especially in regards to the D issues. You are very forgiving of Bergevin, though. It was his poor judgment that left these guys hanging and looking like chumps.

  • Paul Crites says

    Its pretty obvious the issues are D depth and lack of C’s. The question is who is capable of making the necessary changes? Bergevin and his pro scouting staff that thought Ott, King, and Martinsen were good deadline pick ups last year…and who thought Alzner, Streit, and Hemsky were good off season additions. Do they actually watch the games? No way the current regime is equipped to handle the necessary changes…sample size on their inability to make consistently smart moves is large enough.

  • Roland Briere says

    The blue line is the big issue for sure. No idea what happened re: Markov. And he is a huge loss. But as I responded to your COTW the other night, MB has built that D in his own image I think. Safe. And as Grant has said; safe is death.
    Don’t care for a tank. Looking forward to tomorrow night.

  • GMan says

    Yeah, don’t really agree with the premise.

    “4th D, why change it?”
    Emelin was taken in the expansion draft, Markov getting older every year, these are not elements the MB asked for.. just facts out of his control. You ignore these two circumstances as if he had the option to freeze time and have nothing change, c’mon now. These two things played a huge factor in why the D looks so different this year. You also don’t mention just how horrid Emelin was when he lost it last year for a long stretch.. not hard to see why MB would want to spend his 4.5 elsewhere. As for Markov, he wanted him to stay.. just not at the price Markov was asking.
    The only one where he had full control on the situation was Beaulieu, and as he said himself after 5 yrs of hoping he would mature on & off the ice.. decided to cut ties. Agree or disagree, not hard to understand why he was cut loose.

    The issue was not in the D changing, but more how in god’s name he ended up choosing Alzner, Schlemko, Streit, Morrow, Gelinas to replace them. What putrid pro scouting is that?!? If MB is staying, they need new blood in the pro scouting team, heads need to roll.

    “15th on offense, why not change THAT?”
    Again you ignore the fact that he did try to change it, making the move to add Drouin was precisely him trying to help that 15th ranked offense.. problem is he didn’t bank on losing Radulov and basically making it a wash in the end. So he planned to address it, but failed in the execution.
    He then turned to guys like Hemsky, Holland, etc.. again pro scouting a complete failure in 2017 (except Benn).

    So the I don’t get the “I can’t figure out what they were thinking”.. we can figure that part out I think.
    What I can’t figure out is how bad the pro scouting has been in 2017, and how bad MB was on executing his summer plan as he was.
    The only positive was Timmins and the amateur scouting, by all accounts had a great draft.. and gave the munitions to MB to pull off his only “success” of the summer in landing Drouin.

    Which is why, in a strong draft year, I wouldn’t chase a small chance at making the playoffs with this non-contending lineup.. but execute a short-term re-tooling, redefining your core and re-loading for next season. Doing so, give even more opportunities to give your top-tier amateur scouting team the chance to really reload this org with the talent it needs to take the next step.

  • Roger Hulan says

    Good job, Brian – the sky isn’t falling, but the basement is calling! It won’t take long to get back in the mix, but MB can’t be afraid to sacrifice talent to get talent!

  • Ernie D'Alessandro says

    Good breakdown Brian. I think that our pro scouting and player development has been grossly lacking, especially the pro scouting. Who decided that Alzner was worth the contract he received? Who scouted Martinson and King? What could they have possibly have provided to a team that was lacking any consistent scoring? As much as I didn’t like Ott, at least he brought grit butbyou knew he wouldn’t provide scoring. Sometimes, likevthe signing of Alzner I think we make a move just so people can say “look, they did that”. I know that changing GMs in mid season is not a good move, but there’s no one to give us vision so do we stay status quo and hope that MB makes the right decisions based on the past organizational moves? I think that on the ice is not the only place where we lack talent. Keep up the good work.