Bergevin’s deal is solid considering the circumstances
Max Pacioretty is a sweet and gentle soul. Too sweet and gentle, you might think, for the helterskelter mayhem of the National Hockey League, with its sharp elbows, sharper skate blades and still sharper critics ready to pounce on every move.
Yet gentle Max has prospered in the world of gap-toothed warriors, and rose to become both a feared sniper and captain of the once-mighty Montreal Canadiens. Not bad for a college boy from Connecticut.
Much has been written — and much more will be written — about how Pacioretty’s relationship with his club declined from that moment three years ago when GM Marc Bergevin and former head coach Michel Therrien showed up at Pacioretty’s door bearing a jersey with the captain’s “C”.
Pacioretty was the organization’s fair-haired boy back then, the one chosen as captain over the self-regarding P. K. Subban, the one chosen to lead the bleublanc-rouge into what was supposed to be a beautiful future.
Instead, that future had turned ugly as a baboon’s behind. There was the golf course incident in which the since-departed Therrien supposedly called Pacioretty the worst captain he had seen, the brutal 17-goal season in which Pacioretty’s game went south along with the Canadiens’ place in the standings, the foiled trade to the Los Angeles Kings on draft night and the approach to a contract taken by Pacioretty’s newly hired agent, Allan Walsh.
But the bottom line, as Geoff Molson made clear Monday, is that Pacioretty asked for a trade last season. Given that request, the Canadiens had no choice but to try to work out a deal or allow the distraction to undermine their entire season. Under the circumstances, the deal that sent Pacioretty to the Vegas Golden Knights for Tomas Tatar, Nick Suzuki and a 2019 second-round pick was surprisingly solid.
The yowlers on social media, predictably, are laying all the blame for Pacioretty’s departure at Bergevin’s feet. Fair enough, except that had Bergevin signed his captain to an eight-year, US$64-million deal those same yowlers would have been hanging Bergevin in effigy.
Much of the problem was simply business, a by-product of the constant tug of war between players and their teams. The culprit, to me, isn’t Bergevin, Pacioretty or even Walsh — it’s the clause in the collective bargaining agreement with the NHLPA that covers the length of a contract: I have always felt that both sides would benefit if contracts were capped at a five-year term in the CBA.
Teams wouldn’t be so reluctant to sign a veteran like Pacioretty if they were on the hook for no more than five years. That would benefit the players. A limited term would obviously be good for the teams because with few exceptions, it’s impossible to look seven or eight years into the future and predict how any player is going to perform.
The result of what was essentially a contract impasse has been an unnecessarily bitter divorce. The Canadiens lose a player who might top the 30-goal mark for another two or three seasons. Pacioretty loses the comfort zone of a city he very much liked — although he apparently didn’t like it enough to keep him from requesting a trade.
Given the situation, Bergevin made a more than acceptable trade, picking up the Slovak veteran Tatar, the vast potential of Suzuki and a second-round draft pick in exchange for a player who was going to pose a significant distraction as long as he remained with the club.
Pretty good work on Bergevin’s part, although there will undoubtedly be those whose blind hatred of Bergevin will lead them to cast this as the worst deal since the Dutch bought Manhattan. It isn’t.
The Canadiens can no longer pretend that this is anything other than a rebuild, but that’s fine. They weren’t going to reach the promised land with the cast they had — and the work done this off-season has been as solid as last summer’s off-season was shaky.
I have always liked Tatar’s game, perhaps because he always seemed to play well against the Canadiens — and in today’s NHL, speed kills. If he doesn’t work out here, Tatar could be packaged for some help on the blue-line, now that the future (with the addition of Suzuki, if indeed he can play centre) is exceptionally deep at the centre ice position.
Pacioretty’s legacy with the Canadiens will be a mixed one. Until this past season, he was a remarkably consistent goalscorer while playing with a series of nondescript centremen. But he would never use that power forward’s body to drive the net, would never score the dirty goals, would never dominate in the corners. His game was all speed and perimeter, which is fine if you’re 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds. After a while, it became obvious Pacioretty was never going to change, so you had to take him as he was.
Now it’s time to pin the “C” to the chest of Brendan Gallagher, a young man who is (as Felipe Alou used to say of Pedro Martinez) “bigger than the uniform.”
No hard feelings should be directed at Pacioretty or Bergevin. It’s just business. Make the deal and move on.
Teams wouldn’t be so reluctant to sign a veteran like Pacioretty if they were on the hook for no more than five years. That would benefit the players.