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So the young core that Bergevin inherited that flourished under him have nothing to do with management, but the young players that didn't flourish have everything to do with management. This sounds like a fire Therrien thread. Carey Price didn't become Carey Price until Bergevin hired Stephane Waite. No credit for that move I guess either.

Why are you so stuck on Briere? He was not brought here to play top line minutes, he was brought here to play 2nd and 3rd line, help out on the PP, bring some experience and playoff know how to the table. Keep bringing up Briere like Bergevin put all his eggs in that basket, Briere was an addition to the players that were already in the top 9, he was no savior. We signed a mid 30s player who was declining to a 2 year deal and your acting like he was brought here to play a staring role, he was strictly complimentary. Also, comparing the Drouin/Sergachev deal to the Gomez/McDonagh deal is apples and oranges, the only thing in common is we traded our best defense prospect, the players coming back are totally different, in age, in talent, and in upside. Drouin is nearly 10 years younger than Gomez was when we got him. As far as i'm concerned, i'd be more worried if I was Tampa, that they just pulled a Boston and traded away their Seguin, before I worry about if we just traded our McDonaugh. Explain me something, is this team not in need of goals and offence? Who is going to help in that department being in the line up next season, Drouin on the top line, or Sergachev possibly on the 3rd pair? If you answer that objectively, you will see this trade is a landslide win for us until the day Sergachev becomes a top pair dman in this league, a day which no one can know for certain, may never come to be. Got to get away from this its the end of the world Sergachev is gone because we don't have Subban thing, its just looks like the last few kicks while being strangled by a python from disgruntled fans who are still upset about the trade and still try to blame doomsday events on it. That trade was going to happen no matter what, this team did not want to move forward with Subban, and they like Weber way too much, we survived his absence, won a division, improved our PP, lets just move on already. Besides Sergachev is a LHD, Subban/Weber are RHD, if anything Sergachev being traded has more bearing on the fact Markov won't be coming back possibly, way ahead of any Bearing on whether we have Weber or Subban on this team. He was seen as Markov's potential successor. Our D is also not "much worse", we are weaker without Markov but not THAT much. Losing Markov is a loss, there is no denying that. However we made 3 upgrades between the start of last season and now to our defense, Alzner > Emelin, Schlemko > Beaulieu, Benn > Pateryn, I am also convinced we will be doing something about where Markov slotted in, whether that is bringing him back, or finding another LHD through other means, I doubt very much this current Defense line up starts the season. If we even just get Markov back this D is better than last year, if we end up getting a player even better than Markov then this D is in great shape.

Did you ever think of the possibility that Carey Price genuinely doesn't feel that way about the Habs? You can throw him into the bucket of Leaf Fan Homers who think the Habs can be competitive. The reason Carey Price needs to believe this team has a chance to compete is simply because of himself. He doesn't need to focus on all the other noise and things he cannot control. Price leaving for that reason would please the 5-10% of fans who agree with you and demonstrate a certain level of unprofessionalism to the rest. It would never happen because that's not who Carey Price is. I would be very irritated if I found out Carey Price played for this team with thoughts like that in his head. As fans we can think that way, but if someone is going to try and convince me that Price doesn't think we can win a cup as a result of the players in front of him, I'm going to tell them that they are incorrect and that there's a possibility they've never played sports at a competitive level before. We're getting played with this topic. People are complaining about constant mediocrity and think the answer is to trade away or lose for nothing our hero simply in order to make our team worse, accomplishing nothing more than getting someone fired, with no guarantee of a better outcome on the other side.

I notice how you leave out acquisitions that ended up actually being much more helpful than anticipated and all brought in for ridiculously low costs. Guys like Danault, Byron, and Benn. Drouin could easily end up on that list, he is not just a good pick up, he is a meaningful impact acquisition. We traded for a top line player here and lost no one on the current roster, as of right now it is a Home Run, and Until Sergachev turns into a top pairing D-man it will remain a heavily in our favor. That is 4 players added into this roster in the last 2 years who have and will contribute in meaningful ways to the success of this team and they cost us Fleischman, Weise, Pateryn, Sergachev and 4th rd pick. Put that in perspective for a moment, and tell me Bergevin has been completely useless for 5 years. Almost every player you mentioned earlier in your post is a low risk move with no commitments that didn't bite us at all. With the only exception being Prust, and we still didn't really struggle to get rid of him when we wanted to cut him loose, but i'll make him the exception because he got 4 years. Briere, Semin, Murray, Armstrong, Halpern, Weaver, Gonchar were hardly ball and chains to this team, so lets just stop with the rhetoric that they were terrible acquisitions that cost us dearly.

Hey, for the price, even if ends up injured, is worth the risk that he can be a solid 3rd line RW and don't they say he is pretty good defensively, so at least he shouldn't hurt the team when out there. Will need to wait and see if surgery has slowed him up too much though?

He was damn good in 2011. But yes Waite was a great hire. As was Christer Rockstrom. You do realize talking about management hires is a terrible idea when trying to defend Bergevin right? Pretty much every other hire was awful. I liked the hiring of Kirk Muller but it doesn't seem to have changed much. I liked Ramsey and he ended up the only guy let go after the 2016 disaster. Ramage, Lapointe, Churla, Brisebois, Lefebvre, Burke, Mellanby, all trash. He has also kept Timmins long after his expiry date and even gave him a raise. Heck almost forgot Therrien, JJ, and Dan The Man. Also are you trying to credit Bergevin for Price, Pacioretty, Galchenyuk, Gallagher, and Subban?