Canadiens should Copy LeAfs’ plan for revamp
Youth movement only way for Bergevin to create a Stanley Cup contender
Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin believes his team only needs a “reset” and not a “rebuild.”
“That’s me,” Bergevin said in early January when the Canadiens had a 17-20-4 record. “You might not like it.”
The Canadiens have gone 9-12-8 since Bergevin said those words and Montreal fans definitely don’t like it, shown by the empty seats at the Bell Centre and a drop in TV ratings.
A reset isn’t going to be enough to fix a team that was 26th in the overall NHL standings with a 26-32-12 record after Tuesday night’s 4-2 win over the Dallas Stars and was ranked 29th in offence and 23rd in defence.
The Canadiens need a “Shanaplan” like the one Brendan Shanahan put in place in Toronto when he was named president of the Maple Leafs at the end of the 2013-14 season, when the team finished 23rd in the overall standings with a 38-36-8 record. The Leafs finished 27th the next season, in the first year of the “Shanaplan,” with a 30-44-8 record. But the new president was honest with Toronto fans, telling them they were in for a lot more losing before things got better, that it wouldn’t be easy, and that it would require patience while they waited for young players to develop.
Shanahan wasn’t building a team to simply make the playoffs and then see what happens — he was looking to bring Toronto its first Stanley Cup since 1967.
“I just felt like the people in Toronto not only wanted to hear it, but they needed to hear it,” Shanahan told the Globe & Mail about his message to fans. “They needed to hear that the people who were going to be making the decisions with the Leafs saw what they were seeing and were going to try to do something about it. They were things that they wouldn’t necessarily encourage you, at executive school, to say to a fan base.”
That Toronto fan base is happy today with the young and exciting Leafs sitting in sixth place in the overall NHL standings with a 40-22-7 record heading into Wednesday night’s game against Dallas.
There is no salary cap for a hockey operations staff, so Shanahan went out and hired the best people he could find, including coach Mike Babcock, veteran GM Lou Lamoriello, assistant GM Kyle Dubas — one of the brightest young minds in hockey at 31 — salary cap expert Brandon Pridham as assistant to the GM, Mark Hunter as director of player personnel, Cliff Fletcher as a senior adviser and Jacques Lemaire as special assignment coach.
Shanahan had no experience as an executive with an NHL team after his Hall of Fame playing career and a stint running the league’s Department of Player Safety, but he was smart and confident enough to surround himself with people who knew exactly what they were doing without feeling threatened.
Shanahan and his hockey operations team decided to build around young players like Morgan Rielly, William Nylander, Nazem Kadri, James van Riemsdyk and Jake Gardiner, and trade veterans like Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf for prospects and draft picks. The Leafs also got lucky when they won the draft lottery and selected Auston Matthews.
A similar strategy would make sense with the Canadiens, but one of the players Bergevin was reported to be looking to deal before the NHL trade deadline was 24-year-old Alex Galchenyuk. Another was captain Max Pacioretty, who is 29 but had four straight 30-goal campaigns before slumping this season with 17.
How much better might Pacioretty and Galchenyuk be if Bergevin had acquired a No. 1 centre, even though trades are hard to make — as the GM has told Canadiens fans.
Both Bergevin and Canadiens owner Geoff Molson have said the plan is to add youth, experience and character to the lineup.
“We’ve had a tough year this year, but I’m convinced Marc is going to do everything he can to come back ready in September with a good team,” Molson said last week in a video on the team’s website while giving his GM a vote of confidence.
A good “Shanaplan” for the Canadiens would involve trying to trade Carey Price, Shea Weber, Andrew Shaw and Karl Alzner to get a No. 1 centre along with prospects or draft picks. But it would be hard to execute that plan. Price, 30, didn’t play well this season, has become injury prone and is sidelined with a concussion before starting his eight-year, US$84-million contract next season.
Weber, 32, is out for six months after foot surgery on Tuesday and has eight more seasons on his contract with an annual salary cap hit of $7.857 million.
Shaw, 26, appeared to suffer his third concussion in two seasons Tuesday night and has four seasons remaining on a contract with a $3.9-million cap hit.
Alzner, 29, is a slow-footed defenceman with four more seasons and a $4.625-million cap hit.
The future doesn’t look very bright for the Canadiens. A reset simply won’t be enough.