Gainey’s advice to Habs GM Bergevin: Stick to your guns

As a former Canadiens general manager, Bob Gainey can relate to what Marc Bergevin is going through these days.

The Canadiens ended an eight-game winless streak with a 4-2 victory over the New York Islanders Tuesday night at the Bell Centre and Gainey was one of 11 former captains honoured before the game as the franchise celebrated its 110th anniversary.

Gainey won five Stanley Cups and was a Hall of Famer as a player, but was never able to get the Canadiens past the third round of the playoffs during seven seasons as GM. Bergevin is in danger of seeing the Canadiens miss the playoffs for the third straight season and the fourth time in five years.

Before Tuesday’s game, Gainey was asked what advice he would have for Bergevin.

“If he’s made decisions that he thought were good decisions — he really believed in them at the time — then I would hold onto them,” Gainey said. “Keep them. You make your best decision based on what you know and what you have at the time. We’re all susceptible to second-guessing ourselves down the road. But if he’s got players in places that he likes, he may just have to be patient until the current shifts a little bit.”

One of the players Gainey really believed in during his time as GM was Carey Price, even when the goalie was struggling and lost the starting job to Jaroslav Halak. Gainey insisted Price was “a thoroughbred” and the goalie went on to become a Hart Trophy and Vézina Trophy winner as well as being regarded as the best goalie in the world.

“It was hard not to be proven right with Carey, who was a No. 5 pick in a very rich draft,” Gainey said about the 2005 NHL Draft. “Over the years, I’ve found that the amateur scouts are seldom wrong. They’re seldom really way off base. Once in a while, maybe. The guy that you see drafted in the third round as an 18-year old somewhere down the line ends up being that kind of player.”

When asked what his toughest period was as GM, Gainey said: “We had a few … the years I was here we had a lot of ups and downs. We missed the playoffs a couple of times, once on the last night of the season. Probably in my case we had two coaching changes and I ended up coaching (on an interim basis). Those are not nice times. They’re not good memories in your business book of what you’ve been doing.”

The two coaches Gainey fired were Claude Julien and Guy Carbonneau, who was a former teammate and friend. Their friendship was broken by the firing.

Gainey, who will turn 66 on Dec. 13, is enjoying being a grandfather and seems very relaxed. He’s not affiliated with any team, but still keeps his eye on what’s going on around the NHL.