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The “Town Seer” vs. the “Village Idiot” – Is Yzerman Way Smarter than Bergevin?

October 24, 2017

By Grant McCagg

They have played fewer than ten games since the one-for-one swap of Jonathan Drouin for Mikhail Sergachev, but the witch hunters are already out in force looking to torch Marc Bergevin, the village idiot, while showering the town seer, Steve Yzerman, in praise.

I know this goes against the “kick him when he’s down” narrative that has grown to ridiculous proportions considering the Habs have played just eight games – with six of them being on the road that already included a trip out west – but such is life in the eye of the Montreal Canadiens’ media hurricane.

Let’s suppose for a moment that Yzerman had been hired as the Canadiens’ GM in 2010. He would be entering his eighth season as the GM..coming off of a season where the club failed to make the playoffs.

“So much for the five-year-plan!” would have been the common refrain this summer. After all…Yzerman was into Year 7. “Fire the idiot!”

Sure…he was missing his “franchise player” Steven Stamkos for much of last season, but that didn’t stop Montreal fans from vilifying Bergevin when, in Year 3 as GM, the Habs had the audacity of missing the playoffs without their franchise player in Carey Price.

No sir; if Yzerman had been the Habs GM last season, he’d have been roasted black, but instead, today all we hear is how he fleeced Bergevin for Sergachev and is a certifiable hockey genius for what he’s done in Tampa, while Bergevin has been made the scapegoat for a slow start that might look like a blip on the radar if the club can turn things around with nine of their next 13 at home.

Let’s take a closer look.

Yzerman inherited a team that had selected a franchise forward in Steven Stamkos a couple of season earlier and a franchise defenceman in Victor Hedman in 2009. He had the two key building blocks few GM’s are ever gifted before they are even hired.

In addition to those two top-two picks who were just getting their careers underway, in Yzerman’s first draft the Lightning had the sixth overall selection and used it to select Brett Connolly.

Yes…THAT Brett Connolly. Has Trevor Timmins ever used a top-ten pick on a Brett Connolly? A player whose Tampa career consisted of 132 forgettable games and 32 points? You look up the word “bust” in the hockey dictionary and Connolly’s mug is staring right back at ya.

If Bergevin had inherited Stamkos and Hedman, drafted Connolly, and in his third season as GM accumulated 40 points like Yzerman’s team did instead of taking the Habs to his second division title…do you think there may not have been an uproar in Habsland? But…we must remember – Yzerman…genius. Bergevin…village idiot.

The draft misses didn’t stop there. During Yzerman’s tenure, the Lightning have had three top-ten picks and used them to select Connolly, Drouin and Slater Koekkoek. They’ve also had a top 20 pick that was used on Anthony Deangelo.

“Me idjut? That’s unpossible!”

Montreal during Bergevin’s reign has had one top ten pick and used it to pick Mikhail Sergachev. Yes..the player Yzerman is getting so much praise for picking up in a trade was picked by the scouting staff that so many Habs fans insist Bergevin must fire…while Drouin..who is already getting panned in Montreal…is given a pass for having been picked by Yzerman’s scouts. Why does it not work both ways when folks are comparing the two GM’s?

Sergachev has eight points in his first nine games in Tampa..so the Tiki torches are out and the lighter fluid a-spreading – “Bergevin lost that trade!”

Bergevin saw a need to try filling the number-one center spot that everyone in the hockey world was also imploring that he needed to fill- which is why he made the deal. The other big need was to find a left defence partner for Weber, and that wasn’t going to be Sergachev as he’s a right defenceman. Bergevin sees Weber being the #1 RD on the Habs the next five years…it wasn’t going to be Sergachev.

So he traded what he projected to be his second-pairing RD during the Weber/Price/Pacioretty prime for a player he hoped would fill his first-line center spot. You make that deal every day if that’s your projection.

This will end up being a good deal for both clubs unless Drouin truly underachieves and Sergachev becomes the Norris Trophy winner a certain broadcaster has projected he may be.

Drouin is more than likely going to score a pile of points in Montreal…perhaps even mostly as the first-line center. To criticize the deal at this point because Sergachev scored more points after nine games is jumping the gun. You judge trades of young players in ten years…not ten games. Drouin is adjusting to playing center in the NHL, which entails paying plenty of attention to defensive duties, he has been fine, and will only improve with time.

The other big need going into the season for the Habs was finding a mobile left defence partner for Weber. Who was the partner for Weber the first day of Habs’ training camp? Victor Mete, and he has been outstanding. Sergachev may have a great offensive stats, but Mete -five inches shorter and all – has been better defensively this season, which is why he’s played a lot more minutes to date and stayed on the top pairing since Game 1 with one exception.

So…one has to ask…would the Habs be better off right now with Sergachev playing a second-pairing role instead of having Drouin centering the top line? It’s hard to say yes even if their slow start has people saying otherwise.

Slater Koekkoek was picked tenth overall by Tampa in 2012, the same year the Habs selected Galchenyuk. He has played a grand total of 42 NHL games.

You can well imagine the uproar in Montreal if he had been the Habs pick that season. Hell…Michael McCarron was picked 25th overall a year later, has played more NHL games, and the Habs get nothing but grief over his selection as he’s yet to be an NHL regular. Imagine if Koekkoek had been a Bergevin/Timmins pick? “Fire! Fire!”

We don’t hear about those misses when the topic of Yzerman and his scouting staff’s record are brought up though. No one points to the Connolly miss or the cuckoo pick of Koekkoek …we hear about how he stole Kucherov in the second round in 2011.

Undoubtedly, the Lightning deserve credit for that selection, but it’s not like other teams didn’t see the talent…there was a very justifiable reluctance at the time to draft Russians as they were fleeing back to the homeland to play in the KHL in droves.

That is the thing Yzerman deserves the most credit for during his time as an NHL GM, though, taking a chance on Russian talent when most other GM’s were averse to the idea, and he hit the jackpot with Kucherov. That, to me, though, is the extent of his “genius”, which more than anything was gutsy.

When you take Yzerman’s entire drafting record into consideration and compare it to how Timmins has fared at the draft table since 2010…there have been no big top-ten misses for Timmins, and it’s not as if the Habs haven’t gotten some gems after the first round either. Lehkonen may not be Kucherov, but he was one of the best late second-round picks of the past five drafts. Hudon and Gallagher were solid selections as well in the mid rounds, and Mete is the only defenceman in NHL history taken after the top 80 to be an NHL regular at age 19 – that was a true steal in 2016.

You weigh the hits and misses fairly, and look at number of picks and draft position…Tampa’s drafting under Yzerman has been no better than Timmins since 2010, and certainly not since Bergevin joined the Habs in 2013…as Palat and Kucherov were drafted in 2011.

Then there is the actual team record and results. In seven years as GM the Lightning have missed the playoffs three times, including that horrific 40-point season, won one division title and made the Cup finals once.

In five seasons with the Habs, Bergevin has missed the playoffs once, won three division titles, and made the conference finals once.

But what have you done for me lately…eh hasty Habs fans? Tampa, with a relatively cozy schedule is off to a 7-1-1 start while the Habs predictably struggled out of the gate considering their monumental task with the worst opening schedule in the league. So….Yzerman a modern-day Sam Pollock after nine games…Bergevin the Canadian version of Mike Milbury after eight.

Pass me the Tiki torch…I think I’m going to burn my computer.

About Grant McCagg

Read "A Scout's Story" to learn more.

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  • k3x says

    October 24, 2017 at 7:19 pm

    My only issue with Bergevin is that he is a liar. Lie to me once…shame on you…lie to over and over a gain…shame on me!

  • Patrick Moss says

    October 24, 2017 at 8:57 pm

    Both are great GMs. But Bergy has been awful the past 18 months (not because of the Drouin trade though). Yzerman is also an excellent GM. He has won gold medals for putting together Team Canada. He has taken his team to the cup finals. Yes, he had Yzerman and Hedman, but he built, drafted and developed an entire team around them that is a perennial contender, when healthy. You can defend Bergy all you want (I’m still confused as why to why you don’t agree his past 18 months have been awful), but you have to admit Yzerman has been tremendous.

  • Chris Loreto says

    October 24, 2017 at 9:38 pm

    Very good points Grant but MB once had a mobile, offensive defence which he has reduced to a slow , immobile unit that makes zone exits an adventure. Mete is a revelation but the rest of the unit is awful. The Weber trade will soon start to hurt us as this team is not built to win in the foreseeable future. He was a personality trade, not a hockey trade. Alzner is slow and has a far too big contract on term and pay. Petry is soft and prone to disappear when the games get tough.Benn is showing why the worst defensive minded team traded him at the deadline while Davidson i think will be one of our better players.
    This is his D, his work, his vision. It is backwards. It is circa 1993. Combine that with contracts to Streit, Hemsky and many other bad contracts and one can easily see why fans question his work.
    Carey Price in the past covered up a lot of warts. Our start this year was not that brutal as the first 10 games of the season are usually the easiest. What it showed was that in the past this team won first because of CP and second from points from the point. Our offense was never a factor. So when your goalie plays average and you have subtracted all those points from the point, and your offense does what it usually does, is it no surprise you go 1-6-1?
    MB has to own up to the fact that his D vision was wrong and somehow he has to fix it.

    • Grant McCagg says

      October 24, 2017 at 9:43 pm

      Give the defence some time to mesh..I think you’re gonna discover this isn’t a bad group.

  • Henry Viger says

    October 24, 2017 at 10:45 pm

    Excellent analysis!

  • Jean Sévigny says

    October 25, 2017 at 11:12 am

    Great research Grant. Shows how “blinders” can cloud one’s judgement, or perhaps people with an agenda (#FireMB) who are still hung up on the Subban trade!
    Your article proves that all GMs can make great moves (Weber, Byron, Drouin…), or mistakes (Streit, Kassian, Hemsky, King…)!

    What gets to me is people with the “agenda” only look at the mistakes, they refuse to look at the team MB got when he took over and what has been accomplished. And they believe the whole league is eager to help the Habs and MB doesn’t take advantage of it!
    They mention players that were traded away only when they do well. Personally, I am happy when they do well because I liked most of the guys who left. But I focus more on players we have and hope they do well here, that is all.
    Sergachev is doing well and I think TB is a perfect team for him, such a powerhouse on the offence! Drouin is going well in his new role (centre vs wing), will do great in Montreal for many years! So, what’s wrong with a win-win trade. Isn’t that what general managers should want?
    I’m still in MB’s corner, I still want him to do more though, and truly believe he is trying. I have no idea what he’s working on, what he tried in the past and why it didn’t work out, what was said about what player during negotiations. I have no RIGHT to know actually. Would be nice to know but, it is not a right!
    I watch all the games, look at the players on the ice, and have my opinion on them (don’t love them all).
    People who believe otherwise, who believe GM is accountable to them, think too much of themselves. Sit back and watch the game. Your right stops at whether or not you cheer for and watch the Habs, buy their products or not.

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