The Canadiens under Geoff Molson: a disaster
The Geoff Molson - Marc Bergevin Axis has squandered a lot of goodwill
NHL franchises have everything centralized through the mother node (located in Gary Bettman’s ass, presumably) — much like how Subway Sandwiches has a standard look and source for their veg, meat, sauces, and bread — so every NHL team has a standardized operating procedure they must follow even if they have different owners or ownership groups. The NHL has plenty of Subway Jareds scattered around too.
These different owners have a bit of influence but, by and large, a lot of the day-to-day life inside an NHL club is predictable. All players more-or-less get the same per diem, the same boilerplate contracts, the same class and quality of room on the road, etc. as players on another club.
The influence of an owner is subtle and in the notoriously Old Boys Club style of the NHL, the public only learns of differences when something is grievously out of sorts.
For instance, the Pegula family own the Buffalo Bills (NFL) and Buffalo Sabres and the impression of the fans of either team could not be more different today. Sabres fans endured indignity after indignity early on but were never prompted to criticise the owners — why would they? The Pegula family invested tons into the club and were spending wildly, saying the right things, and “not interfering” with the hockey men they hired. It all came to a boil over the last few summers where it was clear, after many years, there was no rebuild, there wasn’t even a build — the Sabres were run into the ground even after every Hockey Man was swapped for another Hockey Man… and nothing changed. They couldn’t even iron their table sheets. With a process of elimination, the Pegula family had a lot of fingers suddenly pointed their way.
I think Geoff Molson has positioned himself in a way that wisely protected his image. Marc Bergevin is the only GM he’s hired and he’s stuck with him, even giving him an unheard-of five-year extension when Bergevin had two years left on his initial five year contract. Bergevin’s contract is slated to end this coming offseason, after the 2021-2022 season, and there are rumblings that Molson believes Bergevin has earned another three years for 13 total and counting.
Under Molson’s stewardship the Habs have made one eyebrow-raising decision after another, but they’ve been scattered around such that the heat never really reached a boil. It was coming to a head when a worldwide pandemic came and saved the organization from close scrutiny.
Any of the below decisions can be explained or hand-waved away but put together they show a dark arrogance that can only come from the top of the organization.
Declaring a Culture Change in 2012 and hiring notorious dinosaur Michel Therrien. A boorish, incurious, rude, “old school” doofus with very few achievements to his name. He had drawn no interest from the hockey world since being fired by the Pittsburgh Penguins many years prior… until Bergevin-Molson handpicked him to lead a team of burgeoning youngsters. Unsurprisngly, he crushed most of them and lead to their burn out.
Suddenly and deliberating snubbing Larry Robinson. Big Bird himself! Whose number 19 is retired by the Habs! A lot has been said about this but the fact the club would initiate contact with Robinson and then sideline him to hire Jean-Jacques Daigneault. A former player and coach with less prestige, less experience, and less accomplishments on and off the ice is still surprising to think about.
Moving the AHL affiliate to Newfoundland. Moving the team from Hamilton, Ontario to St. John’s, Newfoundland lacked all kinds of foresight. The players were upset, the coaches did not enjoy living there, nobody liked that organization or the fact they had to live in the barren town of St John’s. The club thought this wouldn’t impact their prospect pipeline but it perfectly coincided with a massive malaise and production drought which hit the Habs amateur drafting/development team and has not stopped. Players hated getting sent down to St. John’s and it showed in how poorly they played when they were called up — they played for a coach who punished mistakes and were terrified to make any error and risk being sent back to the arctic circle.
Promising Sylvain Lefebvre a position in Laval once the team was ready. Sly Lefebvre was a notoriously bad coach who hurt the nearly all of team’s prospects. The Habs were confident that he was their man, so they told him to weather St John’s because soon he’ll be in Laval. They gave him an extension when the team in Laval was confirmed and to nobody’s surprise, the team remained bad and produced no good players once in Laval as well. Lefebvre wasn’t fired at any time, his contract expired and he moved on. Rumours were that Bergevin tried to retain him even after.
This is the same Sylvain Lefebvre who would later refuse to get vaccinated for Covid-19 and get fired from his job instead. The guy is an imbecile, and the Habs coddled him to ruin prospect after prospect — from Louis Leblanc onward.
Acquiring John Scott to send him to St John’s and prevent him from playing in the NHL All-Star Game. A pathetic, misanthropic decision that remains inexplicable to this day.
Trading for Ben Scrivens to replace Carey Price — and still not tanking. This is a hockey move but it shows how arrogant the club was to think they could replace the goalie they (over)relied on with a mid-tier AHL goalie, and then when that didn’t work they still didn’t engage in a firesale.
Playing coy with Carey Price’s injury. The timetable the club gave its fans and the NHL for Carey Price’s return from his first major injury was constantly shifting and changing and the club refused to shed light on the situation. The fans were left confused why the club would skirt injury-disclosure protocols with the constant mealy-mouthed and mysterious announcements. He’s the star player, just say he’s out indefinitely to heal and get better! Some think it had to do with retaining sponsor interest and fan engagement for the playoff or season ticket renewals but that has never been confirmed.
“No Stone Left Unturned”. Following a disastrous end-of-season, which started promising but the aforementioned injury to Price deflated the team that over-relied on him spun out in an uncontrollable tailspin. Losing many one-goal games and playing with demonstrable distrust of one-another and the coach. The coach was not fired, in fact, Bergevin pledged his support for Therrien and told the fans that he’s a guy you want in your foxhole when things get tough. Subban started the year very strongly and was on early-season Norris-trophy lists. He ended the season with a nasty neck injury and became the scapegoat for all that went wrong that year. Molson pledged to frustrated fans that no stone would be left unturned but in the end didn’t change a single thing of his coaching staff (who had no answers), his management staff (who had no answers), his scouting and development staff (ibid.) — he sanctioned the trade of Subban and Subban alone. Despite poor drafting and development, despite poor coaching, despite a litany of issues that kept the team from reaching the next rank — their best player was made their scapegoat. The effigy of the season.
Project: Make Subban a Better Person. Therrien was on TV proudly stating that his job was to improve Subban as a person (not as a hockey player). An arrogant statement in and of itself. The first lesson: no new contract for Subban. Subban was told to sign a dramatically undervalued contract to prove to the new manager that he is worth what the market clearly thought he was worth. At that time Subban held out for some days and begrudgingly signed a two-year deal — he refused to entertain offersheets and interest from other clubs, he wanted to remain in Montreal. The Habs did nothing with the cap space they saved over those two years, signing a broken down Daniel Briere to a monster 8m deal.
During that same time Team Canada named their Olympic rosters and while other clubs publicly advocated for their players, the Habs and particularly head coach Therrien were coy and quiet, mealy-mouthed when they were asked if Subban should be on the roster. They played him 23+ minutes a night and he lead the team in playoff points every year but they still didn’t think he was a good enough person to have earned their support.
Subban won the Norris trophy the first-year of his two year contract but the club did not celebrate the trophy much at all — in fact they made a bigger deal of the Briere acquisition than Subban winning the biggest prize a defenseman can win. The following off-season, during contract talks he was given the runaround yet again, this time Subban again told the NHL world that he won’t consider offersheets but will only want to be paid what he’s worth. Bergevin thought Subban wasn’t a good enough person to be given a fair offer at any time from July 1st to the following July 1st, so Subban was left qualified and elected for arbitration.
The arbitration hearing was famously brutal and it was noted by his friend Dale Weise that that was the first and only time he had seen Subban visibly dejected and upset at the club. The club had brutalized him in the arbitration hearing — not something a club does to a player they wish to retain. In the end, Geoff Molson told Marc Bergevin to sign a long-term deal with Subban — but this one had a No-Movement Clause baked into it that kicked in only days after Subban was ultimately traded.
All of the above was left explicitly visible to the Habs’ own in-house “24CH” show, where the notoriously private and secretive club made sure fans across the NHL knew that head coach Michel Therrien liked to yell at Subban. Dale Weise in his podcast explained that the coaches would always pick on Subban’s mistakes — to the point of criticizing him smiling the day after a loss in their team video sessions.
Much more will be written about this noxious mistreatment of PK Subban in due course.
“If you want loyalty, buy a dog” The Habs told free agents Andrei Markov (life-long Hab, 990 games played) and Alexander Radulov (team’s best skater who was beloved by the fans) that the club wanted to retain them but presented them with take-it-or-leave-it offers. Both players were insulted by this treatment and told the club to stuff it. Markov was desperate to stay in Montreal and remained a productive player and leader, he felt like he was told to pack his bags and begone. Radulov signed for his asking price in Dallas, terms the Habs eventually matched but it was too late and Radulov, unlike Molson-Bergevin, stuck to his word and went to Dallas.
Most clubs in the league would retire Andrei Markov’s number, the Habs told him to get lost. And with the cap-space they saved? They didn’t even use it, they left it empty and missed the playoffs instead. Instead, they signed players who couldn’t skate (Ales Hemsky, Mark Streit) and whose contracts had to be prematurely terminated.
While other clubs show loyalty and deference to veteran players, if only to maintain an image that money isn’t the only thing — to win over players and their familie — the Habs, who complain about their difficulty in attracting free agents, told their longest serving player to get lost.
Sebastian Aho Offersheet. The Habs conspired with Aho’s agents to design an offersheet that was a sort of poison-pill in the form of it being heavily front-laden with signing bonuses. Aho’s team, the Carolina Hurricanes, are owned by an eccentric owner Tom Dundon who applied his own PE/VC strategy to the Hurricanes’ financial management (ie cost-cutting). It was then impressed on the NHL world and media that the billionaire Tom Dundon could not, or would not, spend the money necessary on retaining Aho on the terms as the Habs designed it.
Carolina’s entire club and Dundon took great offense to that insult and it begs the question if any other owner would sanction such a clear insult to another owner’s ability to pay his clubs bills.
Drafting a player who specifically asked not to be drafted. Logan Mallioux has had a lot written about him and his case, I won’t litigate it here. But the arrogance of this club to sanction this draft pick, one that was 86’d by many other clubs, is hard to fathom. The veritable shitstorm of criticism that came unto the Habs was even worse when the Habs cracked under pressure and revealed that they (1) did not have any plan or forethought about how to deal with the player or his development, (2) did not have any justification for drafting him where they did (first round), and (3) were somehow not expecting and ready to respond to criticism for making the choice.
An owner like Tom Dundon might have not greenlit this move, but the Habs found it fine.
The Habs also seem to have shown interest in many problematic characters — Sean Burke, a convicted wife-beater, was promoted and retained by the club until he left on a free contract. Nick Cousins, an accused abuser, was acquired by the Habs. Several Habs and former Habs had outspoken and malignant views on refugee rights and freedom of expression: Ryan Poehling, Max Domi, Brandon Prust amongst the most vocal ones.
Molson’s tenure as owner has seen standards slip in every way. These things take time to reveal themselves, but at this point the NHL world will not soon forget the Mallioux pick and other owners will not forget the Habs insinuated another club’s owner is skint and cheap. These things have a way of staining a club for a long, long time.