Gainey's legacy as GM is not as bad as people think
I am very happy that mr Molson has chosen to take a new direction and that there will be a complete change in hockey operations for our beloved team. Even though I think it is time to take a new direction, I completely disagree with how people judge Gainey's track record as the habs GM as being horrible.. As a matter of fact, I find BG's tenure as GM to be above average and when you look at every individual move he has made his good move vs bad move percentage is much superior to Serge Savard while he was the GM . I am happy we are going in a new direction because I feel like BG doesn't have the passion anymore after everything that happened in his personal life. If Serge Savard (I know him personally and he is a class act that I greatly respect as a person and businessman) indeed becomes more involved in managing the hockey managers of the habs it is scary to me..
Bob's tenure:
Horrible trades:
Obviously the Scott Gomez one is horrible.. I don't think that BG was convinced it was a good trade either when he made it.. He made a huge decision to gut completely the nucleus of the team that was in place and felt like he needed to make that trade to attract free agents. He successfully attracted the free agents and put a new team in place that got us to the ECF which is exceptional in a 30 team NHL. I am not defending the Gomez deal which was obviously atrocious.. Would the Koivu led team have gone to the ECF? The answer is who knows but there is at least a logic to the decision he had made.. In my opinion, that trade is not nearly as bad as the Chelios for Savard trade but again.. Who knows if we had won the 93 cup without Savard cheering on the bench? In retrospect, the Gomez trade is a horrible one but in my opinion not bad enough to call BG a horrible GM as many GM's have made mistakes much larger than this one.. If the Habs don't keep Koivu they needed a center and had no choice except if they would have kept Koivu
The Ribeiro trade.. Obviously another disaster! Could BG have gotten more for Ribeiro at the time? Ribeiro was obviously not in the plans.. This one is a horrible trade as well..
Amazing trades:
The Kovalev trade was a complete steal! As a matter of fact I think it was probably the biggest steal I can remember the Habs making in the last 10 years or so and BG doesn't get enough credit for that.
The Gorges and Pacioretty for Rivet deal will probably go down as one of the biggest steals in tabs history as well..
All in all I feel like a lot of moves Gainey did were pretty good.. I remember the Lang one, the Shneider one, Wiznewski and even Moore were all really good little deals that were made along the way..
BG's trading and ability to assess needs was pretty good overall.. Not stellar but better than average.. Let's not forget that he took a horrible team and brought it to 1st in the East one year and to the ECF another and left it with a great nucleus for the next GM.
DRAFTING:
Even though Timmins is responsible for the top 3 in the NHL quality drafting over Bob's regime, the final say always comes down to the GM and the GM also decides who the head scout is.. I believe the quality of the drafting for the habs is better that at any other point in my lifetime (I'm 30). Drafting has been analyzed at length on this forum and I think that everyone pretty much agrees that Gainey's team has done an exceptional job in this department. We are far from the Brown, Bilodeau, Ryan, Wilkie, Stevenson etc.. of the Savard days where we only struck gold in his first 2 years..
The weak points of Bob Gainey's tenure was probably player development which is probably what the habs need the most improvement on moving forward. But overall, there is no reason to call his management (specially in the cap era) a disaster
The Canadiens acquired centre Scott Gomez, winger Tom Pyatt and defenceman Mike Busto from the New York Rangers in exchange for winger Chris Higgins and defencemen Doug Janik, Ryan McDonagh and Pavel Valentenko.
Totally agree. Pisses me off that he gets so much crap. The core we have now of Price, PK, Gorges, Patches etc are all Gaineys doing. People forget how crappy we were and how we had no farm team or prospects of a future before he got here.
I agree, he wasn't great, but not as bad as people make him seem. Heck he should get credit for having so much faith in Price also.
When he decided to make Price the number 1 goalie early on in his career, it turned out to be great, with Price maturing a lot faster than most other goalies (but he should have got Price a vet back-up sooner, rather then later).
The weak points of Bob Gainey's tenure was probably player development which is probably what the habs need the most improvement on moving forward. But overall, there is no reason to call his management (specially in the cap era) a disaster
Not a disaster. The weak points to me were pro scouting and cap management.
I don't think the Habs have much excuse for not having good scouts with the money they bring in. There is no cap on scouts, unless it is self imposed.
After the makeover, Gauthier's hands were tied when he took over. They couldn't even keep Dominic Moore who would have resigned fairly cheap.
Gainey at least seemed to have a plan though, which has been lacking recently.
I'm guessing on this, but Gainey may be a micro manager. Remembering what went down with Huet/Theodore/Julien firing and keeping Price against Carbonneau's wishes.
It would be interesting to hear the ex coaches opinions here.
Good first half, has done some good things for us. Not a total disaster but ultimately, his tenure won't be remembered all that fondly. If Price leads us to a cup though, he'll get his due for that. And he should.
Gainey blew hard and I never want to see his face again. The current state of this team is largly due to him. He may have made a few good moves but the bad far out weighs the good.
Gainey blew hard and I never want to see his face again. The current state of this team is largly due to him. He may have made a few good moves but the bad far out weighs the good.
This is overboard. I'm guessing your one of the ones who drive Patrick Roy out of town?
I agree, he wasn't great, but not as bad as people make him seem. Heck he should get credit for having so much faith in Price also.
When he decided to make Price the number 1 goalie early on in his career, it turned out to be great, with Price maturing a lot faster than most other goalies (but he should have got Price a vet back-up sooner, rather then later).
Eh? His making Price the #1 too early is a big reason that the cinderella 2007-08 club did not go far in the playoffs. As was his inability to acquire Marian Hossa. Price became a great goalie, what last year? When Gainey was no longer GM. So I although I credit him for drafting Price, I will not say that the way he was managed was good.
And to the OP, it's hard to maintain credibility when you credit Gainey for acquiring Wisniewski and Moore. That honour, as it were, goes to Gauthier.
Ultimately I credit Gainey for making a playoff club and taking the club back to that level. But no doubt he made many mistakes. Now as for Savard, he was not great in terms of personnel moves, especially his drafting in the 90's and trading Chelios, Leclair and Desjardins, but he did make some astute moves to win a Cup in 93...acquiring players like Damphousse, Bellows, Muller, etc: all came in through trade and not drafts. Gainey was not able to do enough of that during his best shot at a championship in 08, he tried in the off-season but the 09 club that was blown up just wasn't enough.
As a GM, I will remember Gainey for (1) losing Beauchemin because he misunderstood (!) the rules put in place during the lockout, (2) shipping Ribeiro away for an over the hill and over paid #7D, (3) Price's anointment (too early - I agree with smon:"... His making Price the #1 too early is a big reason that the cinderella 2007-08 club did not go far in the playoffs...") and (4) shipping McDonagh away to replace Koivu by Gomez.
When Gainey took the helm, he had, thanks partially to André Savard who cleaned up the Houle mess, a lot of good assets to work with:
Just terrible, he either held off way too long to make a move or when he did it was just a mess. Several of his good moves were more fluke than planned. He got Huet through luck and then dumped him at the worst possible time destroying our season and almost ruining Price. His contract signing and allowing of players to walk away for free was unbelievably stupid. We have fed the league many talented players who we got nothing in return for because Gainey just decided to let them walk away.
Good riddance, this guy made Gauthier look like a genius.
People tend to forget how terrible the team was before Gainey was here. There is no doubt he had a part in bringing the team back from the basement. Unfortunately, he will be remembered for his Gomez trade and nothing but his Gomez trade.
I like to look at the results and the simple facts are this:
-He had 6 years of being the GM, and the team made the playoffs 5 out of those 6 times.
-One of the years the team placed first in the conference.
-The team got 90 or above points in every season he was the GM.
-Two 2nd round appearances.
-One conference finals appearance.
That is way above average in the current NHL environment. I have no problem with Gainey's tenure at all.
People tend to forget how terrible the team was before Gainey was here. There is no doubt he had a part in bringing the team back from the basement. Unfortunately, he will be remembered for his Gomez trade and nothing but his Gomez trade.
I like to look at the results and the simple facts are this:
-He had 6 years of being the GM, and the team made the playoffs 5 out of those 6 times.
-One of the years the team placed first in the conference.
-The team got 90 or above points in every season he was the GM.
-Two 2nd round appearances.
-One conference finals appearance.
That is way above average in the current NHL environment. I have no problem with Gainey's tenure at all.
Gainey blew hard and I never want to see his face again. The current state of this team is largly due to him. He may have made a few good moves but the bad far out weighs the good.
I like to look at the results and the simple facts are this:
-He had 6 years of being the GM, and the team made the playoffs 5 out of those 6 times.
-One of the years the team placed first in the conference.
-The team got 90 or above points in every season he was the GM.
-Two 2nd round appearances.
-One conference finals appearance.
That is way above average in the current NHL environment. I have no problem with Gainey's tenure at all.
And when you consider what he had to work with when he came in, that's pretty impressive.
I think he would've been good if he hadn't had that personal tragedy. The guy is human and I'm sure hockey became far less important for him once that happened. Based on the overall results he was a bad GM, but it really was only in his 2nd half that we saw him starting to suck. I thought he could've rebuilt more aggressively but he was doing a good job putting a team together before his personal life fell apart.
People should show him more respect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingKovy
So name me a habs GM that did better since 1990..
When your competition is Rejean Houle and Pierre Gauthier, it's not much of a contest. Savard would be better though.
Eh? His making Price the #1 too early is a big reason that the cinderella 2007-08 club did not go far in the playoffs. As was his inability to acquire Marian Hossa. Price became a great goalie, what last year? When Gainey was no longer GM. So I although I credit him for drafting Price, I will not say that the way he was managed was good.
And to the OP, it's hard to maintain credibility when you credit Gainey for acquiring Wisniewski and Moore. That honour, as it were, goes to Gauthier.
Ultimately I credit Gainey for making a playoff club and taking the club back to that level. But no doubt he made many mistakes. Now as for Savard, he was not great in terms of personnel moves, especially his drafting in the 90's and trading Chelios, Leclair and Desjardins, but he did make some astute moves to win a Cup in 93...acquiring players like Damphousse, Bellows, Muller, etc: all came in through trade and not drafts. Gainey was not able to do enough of that during his best shot at a championship in 08, he tried in the off-season but the 09 club that was blown up just wasn't enough.
I realize that but in my opinion Gainey had his hand in a lot of decisions up to last year but even without that.. Metropolit, Smolinski, Lang, Shneider, Bergeron were all very good Gainey moves..
I like to look at the results and the simple facts are this:
-He had 6 years of being the GM, and the team made the playoffs 5 out of those 6 times.
-One of the years the team placed first in the conference.
-The team got 90 or above points in every season he was the GM.
-Two 2nd round appearances.
-One conference finals appearance.
That is way above average in the current NHL environment. I have no problem with Gainey's tenure at all.
Great post! that makes way to much sense for some people on this board
One among several opinions that I totally disagree with.We can weigh all the outcomes but have no way of knowing the details.
This man was one of the great players of this team alltime.If you disagree with his work , do so with respect.
Has nothing to do with the discussion, stay on topic. I don't respect the job he has done, he ran away and left a huge mess for someone else to clean up. Saddled this team with bad contracts and idiot coaches. He wasted a lot of time for this franchise.
Bob Gainey did a lot of good but the Gomez trade undid a lot, if not all of that. Trading away two good assets for that albatross of a contract has really hampered the team. The Habs this year with Higgins, McDonagh and $4 million in cap space to spend on other players would have greatly benefited the team.
