His most notable successes were the playoff run in 2014 and last summer’s run to within three victories of a championship. Hours before the firing of Bergevin and Timmins, they won their sixth game, 23 games into a season in which their hopes of making the playoffs are already slim and none.īergevin, who replaced Pierre Gauthier as GM in 2012, had a 344-265-81 record as GM. Without Price and Weber, the Canadiens struggled badly from the beginning of the season. No timetable has been set for his return. The real body blow to the season, however, came when Price, who had been recovering from knee surgery, announced that he was entering the NHL’s player assistance program, as forward Jonathan Drouin had done before him.Īfter 30 days, Price left the program but announced that he was dealing with a substance use issue and that he would be putting his health and the welfare of his family first as he continued his recovery.
With the 31st pick in the first round of the NHL draft, the Canadiens took Logan Mailloux, a defenceman embroiled in a case in Sweden in which he surreptitiously photographed a young woman performing a sex act and shared the photos online. Then came the decision that shook the organization to its core. Two weeks after the playoffs, it was announced that captain Shea Weber was taking an indefinite leave of absence and that he might never return to action. That high-water mark, the best post-season achievement by the Canadiens since their 1993 Stanley Cup, was followed in quick succession by an almost unbroken string of bad luck, bad judgment and bad play on the ice. Despite a poor showing during a regular season played entirely in Canada against the six other Canadian teams, the Canadiens squeaked into the playoffs, where they promptly fell behind the supposedly invincible Toronto Maple Leafs, three games to one.īut Montreal somehow rallied behind goaltender Carey Price to win the next three games, then swept the Winnipeg Jets in four games and wrestled down the powerful Las Vegas Golden Knights before losing in five games to the Lightning in the final. The firings of Bergevin and Timmins mark the end of a tumultuous 2021, even by the frequently melodramatic standards set by the Canadiens. Gorton will be the club’s executive vice-president of hockey operations and his first task, presumably, will be to name Bergevin’s replacement as general manager. Incoming is Jeff Gorton, the former Boston Bruins and New York Rangers boss who was ousted in May. Jeff Gorton has been hired as executive vice-president, hockey operations.
Less than five months after his team was defeated by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Stanley Cup Final, Bergevin (who had been fighting COVID-19) is out of a job.īergevin’s firing was announced Sunday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the resignation of his assistant GM, Scott Mellanby, who quit after being informed that he would not be hired as either GM or director of hockey operations despite “extensive talks” with owner and team president Geoff Molson.Īlso gone are assistant GM Trevor Timmins, the long-time head of amateur scouting for the club, and Paul Wilson, whose clumsy work as Senior Vice-President of Public Affairs and Communications has not won the organization many friends. Marc Bergevin, the lively prankster who enlivened the culture of the Canadiens from the day he was hired in 2012, entered with a bang but left with a whimper, a long-haired, weary individual whose sense of humour appeared to depart long before he did.