Quoting: SevenLeg
My bad I fell asleep and it was an interesting discussion.
Shea Weber has had a higher WAR than Subban since 18-19 (Subban's last year in Nashville). He's also considerably worse this season, he just does not get any backlash from the media because we never play against him. We can blame New Jersey's poor defense, sure, but when you're the one with the most icetime, you're the cornerstone of the defense and the main responsible for its lack of success. It does not mean he's washed, but he's in the weird gray area with Morrissey, Ristolainen, Jones in a way that they contribute to the team's sinking more than anyone else because of how they are used. Is Weber's contract going to bite us at some point? Potentially, but a 35-year-old guy who went through a lot and has crumbling legs is LTIR-bound. As we speak, he has a higher impact on his team than Subban has on his.
As for the trade, we needed a defenseman more than a winger if you ask me. Shea Weber was a safer bet to bring us to contention than Taylor Hall. Andrei Markov was getting old and Jeff Petry was not as good as he is right now.
It's not his fault that the pillars were not strong enough. He inherited of a decent team that was still far away from contention. The Canadiens never had two consecutive top 10 picks since 1980-81 (Wickenheiser, Hunter). That's 7 General Managers : Bergevin, Gauthier, Gainey, A. Savard, Houle, S. Savard, Grundman) Coincidentally, the Molson family has been the main owners since 1978. That said, I refuse to believe that they went through 6 General Managers and none of them sat and thought of a rebuild. The Molsons are among the most successful businessmen in Canada's history and hockey is a business. I bet they make as much money with a round 1 loss as the Stars made in their run to the finals last year.
Like you said, Bergevin is good at finding low-cost gems (Danault/Romanov, Kulak, Armia, etc.) and that's what makes him a good GM. Imagine what he could have done if we had drafted our own duo of stars that seem to be a requisite in order to win it all (Crosby/Malkin, Kopitar/Doughty, Backstrom/Ovechkin, Tarasenko/Pietrangelo, Vasilevskiy/Hedman, Kane/Toews) and we had combined it with Begevin's ability to pinpoint trade steals. The most valuable assets in hockey are 1st round picks and players who are subsequently drafted with the said picks. When you draft only twice in the top 10 in your 9-year tenure and you're somewhat close to the playoffs is a mastermind.
Holy sweet mother of blinded light. I think your looking at this from slightly too rosey glasses. I don't necessarily agree with the WAR rating but Im not opposed to it either. I believe in circumstance 100% though and I would stake my life that if that trade never happened and Subban stayed with the Habs till now, his stats would have been way better had he not gone to NJ and if Weber was dealt to NJ instead, that WAR rating he would have would be tilting your approval in him downwards. Other than Hall that one year, NJ is where players go to die. That's why they drafted 1st OV twice in the past 4 years.....
As for the man in charge, Bergevin is the architect. Everything flows through him. He inherited a Norris calibre dman, a superstar MVP goalie, a perrenial 30 goal scoring winger and a top 3 selection in the entry draft and he didn't start making critical changes to the roster till well into his tenure once the team stopped winning..... This team stopped being competitive once he started truly adding his touch to the team. Weber, Drouin, Shaw, Eller, etc.
Drafting??! Im sorry but "good" GM's don't need to draft top 10 to be good. Even then, every time he drafted in the top 10, he did miss the mark also. Galchenyuk was a failure, Sergachev was traded for Drouin so its like we drafted Drouin...... Kotkaniemi is just ok and frankly Im not sure the skill is there to be a top end player. He may just end up being a decent #2 at best. Which is nice but its hard to watch as the very "Bergevin" type player in Ottawa is excelling on a worse team and probably would have been the smart choice had MB just went out and finally got that #1 center he said no team trades, despite plenty of teams trading for them.....
Regarding that EDM trade, you are missing the point. It was not just Hall, it was the cap space and the draft pick. Cap space to go out and get a Subban replacement and a draft pick to replace Subbans stardom on the team. If MB simply stuck to his motto of hard nose gritty hard working players with skill like he always preaches, the clear cut choice was either Dubois or Matthew Tkachuk in that draft. At worst he still took Sergachev and simply didn't trade him away this time. Sergachev can play RHD so worst comes to worst, he could have been that Subban replacement eventually.
"When you draft only twice in the top 10 in your 9-year tenure and you're somewhat close to the playoffs is a mastermind." - Raise your standards my man. Plenty of GM's have done this, this isn't a spectacular feat. We're so subdued by mediocrity that we're convinced he did a great job. Yeah his sneaky good trades/signings led to players like Danault and Romanov, Toffoli etc. His bad trades/signings an led to Sergachev, Debrincat and Alzner. Can you imagine if MTL was a more sought after destination? We'd have Lucic and ***ing Deangelo on this team right now...... MTL not being a place players want to play has probably saved MB more than it hurt his roster!
He does great on the micro level but the macro level he's failed and 10 years is a long time. He's had plenty of time to mould this team into a perennial playoff team by now and with a few critical mistakes on his part, (Not rebuilding when he needed to, resigning Price to that albatross contract, etc), this team is literally poised to be a bubble team for the foreseeable future.
I repeat, MB is not a
good GM, he's just
not a
bad GM either.