Canadiens owner Molson excited about next season
When Geoff Molson hired Marc Bergevin as general manager on May 2, 2012, the Canadiens were coming off a 31-35-16 season, finishing last in the Eastern Conference and missing the playoffs for the first time since 2007.
“We feel we have selected an individual with the potential to lead our organization in the future,” Molson said during a news conference announcing Bergevin as the new GM. “We were looking for a candidate with very strong leadership capability, great communication skills at all levels and someone with a clear determination and commitment to winning.”
The Canadiens would make the playoffs in each of their first three seasons with Bergevin as GM, losing in the first round in 2013, advancing to the conference final in 2014 and losing in the second round in 2015.
Molson rewarded Bergevin on Nov. 25, 2015 with a multi-year contract extension taking him through the 2021-22 season. Things haven’t gone well since then. The Canadiens haven’t won a single playoff series since 2015 and should have missed the playoffs for the third straight season and fourth time in the last five years last season.
COVID-19 allowed the Canadiens to get into the expanded postseason this year as the 24th and final seed, upsetting the Pittsburgh Penguins in the qualifying round before losing to the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round of the playoffs.
At the team golf tournament before the start of last season, Molson was asked what his expectations were for the Canadiens after they had missed the playoffs by two points the previous season.
“I think last year we made a lot of progression,” Molson said. “We started the season with quite a bit of uncertainty, quite a lot of change and the players on the team showed that they are a good team and they delivered throughout the year. Obviously, it’s not enough to miss the playoffs by two points, but they sure showed that they are a team and I’m looking forward to a hungrier team, having learned from last year, and maybe a few additions. I’m hoping for a really good season.”
That didn’t happen as the Canadiens went through not one, but two eight-game losing streaks before showing some spark during their unlikely trip to the postseason.
“At the end of the day, it’s unacceptable to have two eight-game losing streaks and things do need to change or be adjusted as a result,” Molson said during a 20-minute radio interview Monday with former Canadien Chris Nilan on his TSN 690 Off the Cuff show. “But that doesn’t mean that you have to change your general manager. It means that you have to perhaps put a little pressure on the strategy and ask more questions. … The easy thing is to give up on a strategy.”
Since losing to the Flyers in the first round, Bergevin has been busy improving the Canadiens as he continues the “reset” he started two years ago, adding backup goalie Jake Allen, defenceman Joel Edmundson and forwards Tyler Toffoli and Josh Anderson.
Molson says he is now excited about next season, as are Canadiens fans.
“I, too, like all the fans … I’ve had lots of texts from my friends,” Molson told Nilan and his radio partner Sean Campbell. “We are all pretty excited about the work that Marc’s done … not only over the years getting some nice, young players, but most recently in the month of September to make our team better and I think it is. So, yeah, I’m very excited.
“Right now, I think you guys were saying at the beginning (of the show) how excited you are about this team,” Molson added. “Well, it’s the first time in three years that we’ve said that and we’re saying it and we’ve been building to get to this point and I’m pretty excited about it.”
Expectations will be high for the Canadiens heading into next season, which will put added pressure on everyone in the organization, especially coach Claude Julien.
Julien and Bergevin both have two seasons remaining on their contracts.
“Our fans have been patient as we go through this process and I think that what we showed this summer in the playoffs raised expectations, just then, regardless of changes that we make,” Molson told Nilan. “And then all these additions that we’ve made. At the end of the season, Marc told me where all the holes are on our roster and he filled every single one of them with the new players. So, expectations, I think, are pretty high. I think hope is really high and I couldn’t ask for anything better because I couldn’t have answered that question in the same way a year ago and now I can. And, so, I think that our fans have something to look forward to and we’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.”
Campbell asked Molson during the radio interview how his relationship with Bergevin has evolved over the last eight years.
“It really has evolved,” Molson said. “I mean, the relationship’s always been positive. He came in having been in several roles with Chicago, but never the general manager. And, so, at the beginning, he and I had a lot to learn and nobody’s perfect. But he sure settled into it quickly and I would say over an eight-year period we’ve been through two tough periods together. The most recent one is the reset and the trust is the most important thing for me and it keeps on getting stronger.
“The easiest thing you can do is change your general manager when things aren’t going that well,” Molson added. “But if you truly believe that the person has the capability to build a winning team and you believe in the strategy. …. For the past two or three years I have to take the punches because I really believe he’s a good general manager and I trust him and he does the work that a general manager needs to do to build a winning team for Montreal fans.”
When asked how much his patience has been tested by missing the playoffs so many times in recent years, Molson said: “Over the last couple of years, I mean my patience gets tested I think every morning when I pick up the paper. But I think overall my patience gets tested all the time, but I think it does with Marc as well and with the coach (Claude Julien). And that’s when you have to come together again and trust each other and decide what adjustments you want to make to get better. I’ve said this many times, if the trust was not there the first person to know that would be Marc. But it is there and that’s why we work well together.”
“We started the season with quite a bit of uncertainty, quite a lot of change and the players on the team showed that they are a good team and they delivered throughout the year.” Geoff Molson