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First of all, there is nothing wrong with being content that your team makes the playoffs. Second of all, there is no evidence to suggest that I am merely content with making the playoffs without having a legitimate chance at winning the cup. Especially since I am the one who was saying we should go “all in” this year, prior to the season by paying Radulov what he would have needed to stay here. Every playoffs, 16 teams enter and only 1 team wins. It’s easy to say in retrospect that we haven’t had a chance at winning in 15 years, but this is an entirely false premise. This is my 11th plus year of reading things on this website, and it’s usually the negative nancies who are complaining about a team that is actually quite good. This year, their voices don’t stand out as much because it was glaringly obvious what we had on paper heading into the season was not going to be enough. If you knew every year since 2000 that we had zero chance at winning a cup based on our squad, congratulations. You were right. In the past decade however there have been Habs squads which have been “second tier” contenders at worst, as you would put it, in at least 3-7 seasons. This is a far cry from never having had a legitimate shot, and Pacioretty was on most of those teams. In one of those years, our starting goalie got injured in the Conference Final in what quite possibly could have been a very different outcome had Tokarski not been called upon to work miracles. Sure, our team had trouble scoring in the crunch, but our whole team played differently in front of Price during that period of time. It is quite possible to have an elite contending team with Pacioretty on the squad. Your premise is an illusion in that we can all of a sudden become elite by gathering prospects or even a second line center in return for Pacioretty. There is simply no reason this would be the case, and your argument that we shouldn’t be able to trust Bergevin to retool the team can be said both for trading Pacioretty, or utilizing the cap space we have. If Pacioretty had an extremely high cap hit, sure he would be slightly less valuable on the market, but not at the trade deadline, and I would understand trying to relieve our team’s cap in addition to receiving a solid return for our future by trading him away. This is simply not the case. Once we trade Pacioretty, we will be relying on players like Hudon, Lehkonen, Galchenyuk and Drouin to fill his void on wing. That should be fun to watch our team trying to score goals with those players as your star power. I would trade each of those players, outside of Galchenyuk before Pacioretty. I would also trade Gallagher before Pacioretty. His contract at 4.5 million is not hindering us from competing and similar to the fact that you don’t trust Bergevin to reshape our team with the 8 million in cap space, I don’t trust that trading Pacioretty would make us any more of an elite contender than we could be with him on our team. It’s amazing to see some people so upset about the Subban trade and then vehemently argue that we should trade Pacioretty only a few years later. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have to conclude that there is something subliminally related going on there. You are going to be a very grumpy fan for a long time if your expectations are that in a league of parity, the Habs should be far and above other contending teams. This doesn’t make me “happy enough” just to make the playoffs, but making the playoffs sure beats the alternatives of tanking, or trading away our captain in hopes that we magically become more of a contender as a result.

I think based on the fact that this will be the 3rd meeting in 3 weeks, the Habs got a good shot for redemption as the underdog at home tonight. Predicting a 5-3 win over the poo bears. Anything can happen when rivalry teams meet, and Carey Price's Saturday night record is pretty stellar despite the downtick in performance.

- Bridge contract for Subban - Keeping Desharnais as a top six centre - Thinking the team's problem against Ottawa was they needed to get tougher. - Skipping on Jagr due to a personal grudge. - Skipping on Robinson because he was impatient and wanted JJ Daigneault in an NHL position. - Hiring Therrien - Publicly congratulating Subban on negotiating a number a couple hundred thousand higher than what Bergevin was offering. - Going after Lecavalier and Briere hard - Signing Briere when there was already too many centres so Therrien played a veteran natural centre on the wing. - Letting Timmins draft Connor Crisp - Acquiring Vanek and being fine with Therrien dropping him down the lineup, making the trade pointless. - Needing to fill the 1RW spot, trading for Parenteau to make up for the Briere mistake. Therrien once again clearly doesn't like him. Has to be bought out. - Prioritizing a 2RD over a 2LD when it was clear the plan needed to be about who would one day replace Markov, and not using young players like Beaulieu and Tinordi (who couldn't make Therrien happy) to do it. - Fighting Subban tooth and nail on his new contract once again, this time publicly losing as everyone knew Molson had to step in. - No strategy set by the coach for Galchenyuk to be a top six centre. Keeps Plekanec, Desharnais, and Eller which meant Therrien never had to try Galchenyuk at centre if he didn't want to. Could have traded someone to force Therrien's hand but did not. - After the team's best season despite a second round exit for lack of scoring, Bergevin only signs Semin and Fleischmann. Still no decision on 2LD as Markov is getting older and as he does, the need turns into a 1LD. - Does nothing when his Hart trophy goalie goes down. Relies on a rookie and a career backup on his way out. James Reimer is available all season to any team. Eventually goes to San Jose at the deadline for peanuts. - Still won't trade a centre to make a spot for Galchenyuk. - Calls Subban a Hab for life when rumours break that Bergevin has been talking to teams about him. Threatens NHL action on the Canucks for talking openly about it. Talks more about how Gretzky was traded. Trades Subban the last day he can before the NMC is activated. - Chases Lucic, a left winger. Fails, so he tells remaining free agents he won't give them more than a one year deal. Perron says no. Radulov says yes but wants two years. Bergevin says one or none. Radulov signs. Habs for the fourth time acquire a top six RW with a temporary contract (Ryder, Vanek, Parenteau, Radulov) - Blames the bad season on himself so nobody will be fired. Then blames it on injuries. Defends Subban trade by saying there's things about Subban we don't know about. - Still has not filled the 2LD spot so Therrien plays Emelin with Weber. Eventually gives up and plays the old men together. - Galchenyuk once again moved off centre after proving himself because he came back too early from an injury. Eventually re-signs Galchenyuk after telling the world he won't be a centre. This season proves it, as pretty much everyone gets a shot except Galchenyuk. - After several failing seasons in the AHL as head coach, team allows Lefebvre to look for new work. Doesn't fill his spot, then when he fails, gives him his old job back. - Trades the one guy who could actually fill the 1LD spot for Drouin. Decides Drouin will be a centre. - Doesn't re-sign Radulov or Markov after take it or leave it offers. - Trades Pateryn for something his wife said, for a guy who goes on a hot streak despite a career proving he's nothing more than a third pair guy. Protects third pair guy in expansion draft. Brings him up as a potential first pair partner for Weber. He's in the top four currently playing worse than almost any defenceman in the league. There's more but I have run out of time and my finger is sore.

He has performed as well as any GM that has been fired and he has made WAY more mistakes than the two you’ve listed. Most GM’s with his track record for a major team would have been fired long ago.

I guess we will not agree. I am not saying he is without fault. Your question was why thought he had performed as well as any other GM. I think he has performed as well as any. Anyone coming in would want to do their own evaluation, and then "tweak" the tam to their liking, before putting in a plan. MB has done more good moves than bad, his errors have been: Radulov and Sylvain Lefebvre. I think Markov had to go, the same way I think Pelks has to go this year; but for the rest, I do not think there are any better GMs available to take MB's place. For that reason, I would stay with MB.

He must have been a last second scratch. He blocked a shot on Friday and I guess he was a bit sore. Lefebvre said postgame that he'll play on Wednesday.

You basically just explained why he should be fired.

In my view, Marc inherited an empty prospects pipeline due to Gainey's/Gauthier's dealing of draft picks between 2008-2011 when they didn't have 2nd round picks: https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/MTL/draft.html That crop of players (2008-2011) have not yielded any NHLers, they would be graduating now with the club or be part of the core of the team. Only Gallagher made it, and he is a mid-6 RW, and having a career year. From the 2012 crop, Galchenyuk, Collberg (became vanek) and Hudon are looking fine. Bozon's health is not on the Habs, and is unfortunate. The drafts since 20113 have not been too high up in the standings because the habs have done well during the season, MB did manage to patch together competitive teams except for 2015-2016 when Price was hurt. In 2016 the y drafter Sergachev, Mete, Bitten, etc which look promising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Montreal_Canadiens_seasons the summer of 2017 was disappointing due to the mess with Radulov and Markov and the underwhelming performance of Alzner and Schelemko. With Weber's injury, Price's unerperformance at the begining of the season and Ben's and Petry's problems under CJ's system, the defence has played very badly. But overall, I believe that Marc bergevin has performed well, as well as any GM during his tenure. I do not want him fired. Not just yet.

Your apparent attitude that the whole aim is just to make the playoffs - rather than actually be a serious league power, a first-tier Cup contender - is exactly the attitude this loser organization wants of its fans. Unless you actually think the Habs have a good chance of winning next season. In which case:

First time we've gotten a call after a video review since I can remember.

15 in 46 now for patches. He could easily still put up 30

That's because he's a righty and had to shoot backhand First I noticed him was on that play.

If that was literally anybody else on the team with that opportunity other than L Shaw, that puck was in. Well, L Shaw and De La Rose. Well, L Shaw, De La Rose, and Alzner. But anybody else, it was in!

I really like this article. Saying sell, sell, sell, ... is just silly and requires no thought. We need to identify the players who we can bring back real value to the team. Piling up a bunch of low round draft picks might be selling but I don't see it as helping the team significantly. Great article with some well thought out arguments.

Bad shift by Galchenyuk. First he does a high-risk, low-reward pass in his own zone right to a Boston player, then he leaves his wing to go for the puck in the corner and pushes the puck up to the wing he just vacated. I will accept a goal as repayment for these errors.

The Caps game yesterday was the first match I missed the entire season, and of course we won. I've been on a little unlucky streak myself, catching all our goals against and missing all our goals for, for one reason or another. I'll be tuned in to this one so hopefully my luck will change since I'm one of the (what seems like) few people still looking to enjoy some wins. Since the game is at home, I think we've got a shot.

I do not think we ever recovered: we have not won a cup in all those years after. I do not remember the André Savard years (was he GM when Saku got hurt against the Hurricanes?), but then we ran Gainey out for being a terrible GM. Gauthier was a disaster. Now MB. What I am saying is that I want to keep a GM for a couple of generations of players, and I believe Bergevin is a good as any. Including making mistakes

I get it, he had his chance. It sucks to be a fan of a team that will go into a rebuild and not contend for another 5 years. That's a long time. Whoever comes in needs to be a wizard or have superpowers to turn it around in less than 5 years. Firing MB and hiring anyone else is just setting us up to be disappointed again in 5 years from now.

I agree with the idea that moving him because he has huge value and because now is the time to capitalize on that value, and you extract a number of key prospects and top picks for him. I don't agree with the narratives of he's not a leader, he's not clutch, and all the other crap that gets spouted about the guy.

Horvat Nilsson Pouliot Biega Chaput Demko 1st Price Weber