Marc Bergevin did not swing for the fences with his controversial hostile offer for restricted free-agent centre Sebastian Aho. He simply made it look like he was swinging for the fences.
If the Montreal Canadiens’ general manager wanted to hit a home run, continuing with the baseball analogy, he would’ve made an offer to Aho that was, for all intents and purposes, impossible for the Carolina Hurricanes to match. He should’ve offered, for the sake of argument, US$10.5 million for five or six years rather than what he offered, which was an average of $8.45 million over five years.
That was always an offer that the Hurricanes could easily match even if owner Tom Dundon wouldn’t be happy to match it. And guess what? On Monday afternoon, the ‘Canes announced that they would be matching the Bergevin offer.
“It’s our job to manage our cap space as our players develop and hit free agency,” Hurricanes GM Don Waddell said in the news release that announced they were matching. “There was no concern at any point that we would not be able to match this contract. Once again, the Carolina Hurricanes should not be underestimated. We have a plan and all the resources to win a Stanley Cup.”
In other words, it’s over and there’s only one plausible conclusion — Bergevin’s strategy was a massive fail. A number of teams in the East got significantly better. The New Jersey Devils added No. 1 overall draft pick Jack Hughes, Norris Trophy-winning defenceman P.K. Subban and rugged forward Wayne Simmonds to a roster that already includes Taylor Hall.
The New York Rangers snared Artemi Panarin and that follows the Blueshirts drafting No. 2 overall pick Kaapo Kakko and trading for defenceman Jacob Trouba. Meanwhile the Florida Panthers acquired, as expected, star goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. Over in Toronto, the Maple Leafs traded Nazem Kadri to the Colorado Avalanche in return for defenceman Tyson Barrie, centre Alexander Kerfoot and a 2020 sixth-round draft pick. The Leafs badly needed help on the blue line. The Avs also snared defenceman Calle Rosen and a 2020 third-round pick in the deal.
In short, the Canadiens did not get better and several of their competitors did.
So why did Bergevin do this rather than actually making sure he could get a player or two to help his team? This is just one more spin from the cynical Canadiens management team. It’s an effort to distract fans from the fact that they were unable to sign the guy they really wanted, Matt Duchene. After all the chatter about how he comes from a family of Habs fans, Duchene — as expected — signed with the Nashville Predators.
The CH bosses know there is enormous pressure from the fan base, which wants to see some improvements. The team has not made the playoffs for three of the past four seasons and have won one playoff series in five years. So Geoff Molson and Bergevin made it look like they were making a bold move to boost the club’s fortunes, knowing full well it would likely fail.
The next time Bergevin and his boss meet the media, they can say: “Hey, we made a huge move on July 1 and it didn’t work out but, heck, we tried. And did we mention all these great young players and the even greater prospects we have in the pipeline?”
It’s not just the fan base that’s getting a little antsy. The Canadiens’ two highest-profile, highest-paid players both took shots at management in an interview with The Athletic during the weekend.
“So it’s good to have depth in your system, but for me personally, being on the ice, it’s kind of irrelevant until I see somebody in the lineup, you know?” said Price.
Weber echoed Price’s sentiment that the clock is ticking for both of them. The window of opportunity is closing, even if Bergevin doesn’t believe in windows of opportunity.
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Bergevin used the Aho charade to pump the team’s tires.
“This shows to our fans that Geoff Molson ownership that we want to be a good hockey team,” Bergevin said Monday. “We want to win and we feel that this is the guy that we identified was going to help.”
In fact the offer doesn’t show that at all. With the Hurricanes announcing they’ll match, it actually shows that it looks like the Canadiens will once again leave plenty of dough on the table this season, just like they did the past two seasons. Bergevin left more than $8 million in unspent salary cap in the CH coffers for each of the past two seasons.
The Canadiens have $11.8 million in free cap space, according to CapFriendly.com and we’ll see how much of it they spend during the summer.
Hopefully they’ll spend to make the team better because if they don’t, there’s a good chance they won’t make the playoffs. But whatever happens in the coming weeks, the one sure thing is that the Aho move was nothing more than a distraction.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
