The Subban Trade

[jeff33]

This is obviously one of the most polarizing trades we have ever made. 

I personally think its going to go down as one of the worst in franchise history, and it is empirically already a complete disaster  only 2 years in.  Subban seems to be improving even from where he was, and another Norris is a very real possibility in his future, as is a cup.

As far as Weber, I am far less generous than you guys, and aside from how I felt about the trade, I truly, objectively feel he is totally underwhelming as a fan. I can see where he used to be a force. He is no longer a force. Having him does not make us a special team, he does not make us a threat to win every night.  I dont think he is even in the top 20 D in the league at this point, and I would trade him straight up for ......man the list is huge. I predict that within the next 3 years at MOST,  he's going to be in Brent Seabrook territory and the conversation is going to be how can we get rid of this guy.

Anyway, have at it fanboys and haters!

[Habs=stanleycup]

1 hour ago, jeff33 said:

This is obviously one of the most polarizing trades we have ever made. 

I personally think its going to go down as one of the worst in franchise history, and it is empirically already a complete disaster  only 2 years in.  Subban seems to be improving even from where he was, and another Norris is a very real possibility in his future, as is a cup.

As far as Weber, I am far less generous than you guys, and aside from how I felt about the trade, I truly, objectively feel he is totally underwhelming as a fan. I can see where he used to be a force. He is no longer a force. Having him does not make us a special team, he does not make us a threat to win every night.  I dont think he is even in the top 20 D in the league at this point, and I would trade him straight up for ......man the list is huge. I predict that within the next 3 years at MOST,  he's going to be in Brent Seabrook territory and the conversation is going to be how can we get rid of this guy.

Anyway, have at it fanboys and haters!

Anyway I happen to agree with you wholeheartedly. The Subban trade was the our biggest mistake and the beginning of our downfall.

A total rebuild is what we need IMO but without Molson & Bergevin.

Yes I would trade the likes of Weber, Paccioretty, & Price in a flash as I feel they have become this team's ball & chain.

[BigTed3]

1 hour ago, Habs=stanleycup said:

Anyway I happen to agree with you wholeheartedly. The Subban trade was the our biggest mistake and the beginning of our downfall.

A total rebuild is what we need IMO but without Molson & Bergevin.

Yes I would trade the likes of Weber, Paccioretty, & Price in a flash as I feel they have become this team's ball & chain.

Up until the Subban trade, Bergevin made a lot of dumb mistakes as a GM... Bouillon, Murray, Drewiske, Desharnais extension, etc. But the upside was that most of those mistakes were reversible or short-term. We suffered for them, but after a season or two, we moved on and the effects weren't as pronounced in the long-term (albeit I still believe Mouillon slowed down the development of Beaulieu/Tinordi/Pateryn, for example.

With the Subban trade, we gave up one of the most skilled and dominant players in the game, didn't get enough as a return, and shortened our window at the Cup. The repercussions were felt immediately and will last for maybe a decade. If you were a fan of Subban, you understand that we lost a great player. And even if you weren't a fan of Subban, you at least understand that we got older and slower and made that trade turning down other offers that could have set us up beautifully for the future. One rumor was something to the effect of Subban for Draisaitl, RNH, Nurse, and a pick... imagine. Knowing what we know now, despite being a Subban fan, I would make that trade today if we still had PK. The problem is that we got worse in the short-term and made no gains at improving our team in the long run.

As for Weber, Price, and Pacioretty, I think all three are still very good players. Pacioretty remains a bargain on his contract, but the problem is that it just isn't realistic or smart to re-sign him to something like a 6-7 year deal for 7-8M a season. With Carey, the contract is bad and the effort hasn't been consistent. I think he can still be a dominant goalie for the next 5 years, but at what cost against the cap? And Weber's contract is the worst of the three, with the threat of a cap recapture penalty if we trade him but a declining asset if we don't. It's lose lose. With where we are now, the main question remains, "are we a legit contender for a Cup in the next 2 seasons?" Unless we can add Tavares and another top 6 center and a 1 LHD, we just aren't. So if that's the case, the right plan becomes finding players who can help you win the Cup in 3 years or 5 years. Price and Pacioretty and Weber aren't going to be central figures in 5 years. Right now, there are still people who think highly of them and who will give us a return in a trade. That might not be true in 2 years. So you need to deal them while they have value and not wait until it's too late.

[Manatee-X]

Bringing this over from the rumours thread...

15 hours ago, Windoe said:

We actually began losing with PK, we missed the playoffs and then PK was traded.  The next year we made the playoffs.  

I agree, we definitely did not get the better player in the deal.

PK was the chemistry problem a few years back in his last year in Montreal.  Separately, is the current attitude problem, which does exist, but its developed from frustration.  Namely, being asked to win night after night without the proper tools.  You can only squeeze and squeeze so much, until there's nothing left.  The players were happy to be done with this season.  MB is on very thin ice.

Team chemistry is important.  Its why teams do things like go on chartered fishing trips.      

I feel like we're inching closer to a middle ground here .  

I don't deny that chemistry is a real thing, and I'd also agree that PK's "exuberant" personality most likely ruffled more feathers than it smoothed.  But I'd still contend that the best medicine for bad team chemistry is winning, which Subban pretty clearly helped with.  I'd also say that whatever negatives the bad chemistry may have brought to the on-ice product were more than compensated for by Subban's skill, effort and all-around play.  So I guess that while I'm willing to concede that he may not have been good for "the room" on a losing team, I don't think that that's a good enough reason to trade him (particularly for the return we got).

5 hours ago, Disillusioned1 said:

Fact of the matter is, since Subban become a key member of this team, we had a winning record every year except as noted, the injury prone 2015-2016 season.  More importantly we were contenders, long shot, but at least contenders.  Without Subban we're at best, a borderline playoff team.

Subban wasn't going to single-handedly win us a cup, just like trading him isn't the only thing pulling us down.  Perhaps more than any other, hockey is a sport where a single player, especially a skater, isn't going to be able to carry a team all on his own.  And if Subban had to be traded, I'm sure that there were deals that could have been made without setting our team back to square one.  Our real problem is that we weren't in a particularly good place before the trade (hampered by coaching, carried by our goalie), the Subban trade we chose to make was for a player who was worse and didn't fill a need on our team, and generally speaking Bergevin has been moving away from skill and puck movement and towards more "old school" characteristics. 

All of this to say, I don't know that we can really look at the trade and say that it's why the team started losing.  But I do think that we can pretty safely look at the trade and say that it hasn't helped.  Subban played better for us than Weber has, and that was a predictable result when the trade was made.  Even amongst the people who think that Subban was such a problem in the room that he absolutely had to be traded, we're not hearing a whole lot of comments saying that the trade we made was a good one.

And for those of us who think that the problem in the room was overstated, well... yeah, personally I really do think that this is in contention for being one of the worst trades in team history.

[Habs=stanleycup]

2 hours ago, BigTed3 said:

Up until the Subban trade, Bergevin made a lot of dumb mistakes as a GM... Bouillon, Murray, Drewiske, Desharnais extension, etc. But the upside was that most of those mistakes were reversible or short-term. We suffered for them, but after a season or two, we moved on and the effects weren't as pronounced in the long-term (albeit I still believe Mouillon slowed down the development of Beaulieu/Tinordi/Pateryn, for example.

With the Subban trade, we gave up one of the most skilled and dominant players in the game, didn't get enough as a return, and shortened our window at the Cup. The repercussions were felt immediately and will last for maybe a decade. If you were a fan of Subban, you understand that we lost a great player. And even if you weren't a fan of Subban, you at least understand that we got older and slower and made that trade turning down other offers that could have set us up beautifully for the future. One rumor was something to the effect of Subban for Draisaitl, RNH, Nurse, and a pick... imagine. Knowing what we know now, despite being a Subban fan, I would make that trade today if we still had PK. The problem is that we got worse in the short-term and made no gains at improving our team in the long run.

As for Weber, Price, and Pacioretty, I think all three are still very good players. Pacioretty remains a bargain on his contract, but the problem is that it just isn't realistic or smart to re-sign him to something like a 6-7 year deal for 7-8M a season. With Carey, the contract is bad and the effort hasn't been consistent. I think he can still be a dominant goalie for the next 5 years, but at what cost against the cap? And Weber's contract is the worst of the three, with the threat of a cap recapture penalty if we trade him but a declining asset if we don't. It's lose lose. With where we are now, the main question remains, "are we a legit contender for a Cup in the next 2 seasons?" Unless we can add Tavares and another top 6 center and a 1 LHD, we just aren't. So if that's the case, the right plan becomes finding players who can help you win the Cup in 3 years or 5 years. Price and Pacioretty and Weber aren't going to be central figures in 5 years. Right now, there are still people who think highly of them and who will give us a return in a trade. That might not be true in 2 years. So you need to deal them while they have value and not wait until it's too late.

100% Agreed

[Regis22]

3 hours ago, BigTed3 said:

. With where we are now, the main question remains, "are we a legit contender for a Cup in the next 2 seasons?"

Not even a playoff contender

[kinot-2]

2 hours ago, Regis22 said:

Not even a playoff contender

And MB would say that if you make the POs, you're a contender. 

 

[Habberwacky]

I think there were 3 or 4 items that made this trade happen for me. One was PK's maturity. I think it impacted him negatively on and off the ice, but also attracted a lot of fans. The second component was the availability of Shea Weber.  I am not sure there were any GM's  who would have turned down a trade of there top pairing defenceman for Weber straight up. The third part for me was PK's leadership in the room and influence on some younger players. Not necessarily all his problem but the coach appears to have had his hands full with some of the younger players and moving one (especially for Weber) may have helped make the group more manageable. Finally I believe Molson had to have seen something (perhaps the value of Weber) to make him give up on his investment so quickly. We know Molson wanted a contract to get done, after Bergevin appeared to want to play hardball with PK.  At the time I was a little indifferent to the trade (happier to see Weber) as PK's antics wore on me, mostly the stuff that lead to turnovers and goals, but he was still pretty young. I still think he is struggling with the maturity piece and the trade has helped him to take life a little more seriously and get better. Having Subban on the team was not  going to save this season anyway.

Not sure I have any complaints about Weber yet as the injury has made this year a right off. I look forward to seeing him back next year. I wish PK all the best and time will tell. If PK gets dealt again than Bergevin may look a little better, but with the injury to Weber not sure how I think it is a bad trade. We've had some bad luck this year and hopefully next year we get an 82 game evaluation. Subban should be putting up good numbers in Nashville as he has a better group of defenders around him than Weber. I am more upset with the way Julien has handled the team (and the hiring of him) and the injuries that really set us back this year than the trade.  We start slow this year and Julien has to go and I think that is why Ducharme and Bouchard are now in the organisation. I can see Ducharme as head coach by 2020 and Julien either moving up or on as his contract expires depending upon the success  of the team.

[Noob616]

Absolutely disastrous trade. I rank Subban somewhere in the #2-4 rank among defensemen (I put Karlsson clearly #1, then Doughty, Subban, and Hedman are 2-4 in no particular order) and IMO Weber is somewhere in the #20-30 range at this point and is just about to start his age 33 season after a foot tendon surgery. He's been excellent with the Habs and done everything he reasonably could have, but he just isn't what he was in his 2009-2014 prime and it really shouldn't be controversial to say that a professional athlete will be less effective age 31-38 than in their age 23-30 prime. It leaves the Habs with basically one guy who can potentially be elite (Price) and zero margin for error if he struggles. It just didn't make any sense in terms of value, aging curves, or stylistically with how much faster the NHL is getting, and it only gets worse from here.

It wasn't just a loss of value as a 1-for-1 deal, it also indirectly opened up other holes on the roster. Subban played at an elite level with Hal Gill, Josh Gorges, Francis Bouillion, and late 30s Andrei Markov as partners, and put up a Norris calibre season this year playing on Nashville's shutdown pairing with Alexei Emelin until Ryan Ellis got back. But now the Habs have been scrambling for two years to find a partner for Weber, and that will probably mean losing another trade on value to fill a need on the roster at LD, and/or rushing Mete's development. Losing Subban (and Markov+Beaulieu) has been a disaster for the Habs' transition game, and really hurt Pacioretty's effectiveness since his game is so reliant on getting those breakout passes. It just hurts the team a lot, and it probably only goes downhill from here unless Zadina is Tarasenko. It's just hard to look at the Habs in 16-17 with Markov, Radulov, Pacioretty at 4.5M, and Weber+Price having great seasons and still losing in the 1st round and imagining the Habs getting anywhere with Markov, Radulov, and Pacioretty gone while Price+Weber age into their 30s. 

All that being said I think people (myself included at the time of the trade) are overreacting about the contract. Weber's cap hit is high-ish but 7.8M is still reasonable value for a top pair guy and I'm quite confident he'll remain at least a credible top pair guy for 5 more years until he retires. If you look at his actual salary, he's paid $6M for the next 4 years, $3M for 1 year after that, then 3 more years of $1M. There's no way he's actually playing out those years for $1M, look at Hossa, Zetterberg, etc, all those long front loaded deals are structured so the player retires when it drops down to $1M a year. The other possibility if things get into Seabrook territory is a compliance buyout, there's going to be another lockout in September 2021 so the Habs could easily buyout Weber then since it would only cost 8M in real dollars. 

 

[Disillusioned1]

16 hours ago, Manatee-X said:

Bringing this over from the rumours thread...

I feel like we're inching closer to a middle ground here .  

I don't deny that chemistry is a real thing, and I'd also agree that PK's "exuberant" personality most likely ruffled more feathers than it smoothed.  But I'd still contend that the best medicine for bad team chemistry is winning, which Subban pretty clearly helped with.  I'd also say that whatever negatives the bad chemistry may have brought to the on-ice product were more than compensated for by Subban's skill, effort and all-around play.  So I guess that while I'm willing to concede that he may not have been good for "the room" on a losing team, I don't think that that's a good enough reason to trade him (particularly for the return we got).

Subban wasn't going to single-handedly win us a cup, just like trading him isn't the only thing pulling us down.  Perhaps more than any other, hockey is a sport where a single player, especially a skater, isn't going to be able to carry a team all on his own.  And if Subban had to be traded, I'm sure that there were deals that could have been made without setting our team back to square one.  Our real problem is that we weren't in a particularly good place before the trade (hampered by coaching, carried by our goalie), the Subban trade we chose to make was for a player who was worse and didn't fill a need on our team, and generally speaking Bergevin has been moving away from skill and puck movement and towards more "old school" characteristics. 

All of this to say, I don't know that we can really look at the trade and say that it's why the team started losing.  But I do think that we can pretty safely look at the trade and say that it hasn't helped.  Subban played better for us than Weber has, and that was a predictable result when the trade was made.  Even amongst the people who think that Subban was such a problem in the room that he absolutely had to be traded, we're not hearing a whole lot of comments saying that the trade we made was a good one.

And for those of us who think that the problem in the room was overstated, well... yeah, personally I really do think that this is in contention for being one of the worst trades in team history.

Absolutely, which is why even my original reply to windoe, I mentioned we lost 2015-2016 because we were decimated by injury and we needed secondary scoring.  But that doesn't change the fact that Subban is a key part of any potential cup runs.  Young right-handed Norris winning defenceman who's got decent size, can skate and shoot, eat up minutes and shut down the other teams' best players.  Not to mention he actually wanted to play in Montreal.  Every team is looking for one of those so how could we possibly get equal value in return?

So as I've said before, this has nothing to do with Weber.  It's not his fault.  So yes, we did have problems before the trade, but those are solvable problems.  Now however we slammed our window shut and we slammed it shut good  And to boot didn't get us the pieces to properly rebuild.  That really sucks.

[Larry-Launstein-Jr]

2 minutes ago, Disillusioned1 said:

Absolutely, which is why even my original reply to windoe, I mentioned we lost 2015-2016 because we were decimated by injury and we needed secondary scoring.  But that doesn't change the fact that Subban is a key part of any potential cup runs.  Young right-handed Norris winning defenceman who's got decent size, can skate and shoot, eat up minutes and shut down the other teams' best players.  Not to mention he actually wanted to play in Montreal.  Every team is looking for one of those so how could we possibly get equal value in return?

So as I've said before, this has nothing to do with Weber.  It's not his fault.  So yes, we did have problems before the trade, but those are solvable problems.  Now however we slammed our window shut and we slammed it shut good  And to boot didn't get us the pieces to properly rebuild.  That really sucks.

Things are not looking up anytime soon. Vegas is the one team that the other teams are going to try to emulate. In all fairness, they have started from scratch and are not saddled with a tradition. The Habs need to think forward, not backward.

[CaptWelly]

Just for fun can we start a poll and predict a date when we don't have a Subban thread? I say 10/1/2026

[habs1952]

2 hours ago, Habberwacky said:

I think there were 3 or 4 items that made this trade happen for me. One was PK's maturity. I think it impacted him negatively on and off the ice, but also attracted a lot of fans. The second component was the availability of Shea Weber.  I am not sure there were any GM's  who would have turned down a trade of there top pairing defenceman for Weber straight up. The third part for me was PK's leadership in the room and influence on some younger players. Not necessarily all his problem but the coach appears to have had his hands full with some of the younger players and moving one (especially for Weber) may have helped make the group more manageable. Finally I believe Molson had to have seen something (perhaps the value of Weber) to make him give up on his investment so quickly. We know Molson wanted a contract to get done, after Bergevin appeared to want to play hardball with PK.  At the time I was a little indifferent to the trade (happier to see Weber) as PK's antics wore on me, mostly the stuff that lead to turnovers and goals, but he was still pretty young. I still think he is struggling with the maturity piece and the trade has helped him to take life a little more seriously and get better. Having Subban on the team was not  going to save this season anyway.

Not sure I have any complaints about Weber yet as the injury has made this year a right off. I look forward to seeing him back next year. I wish PK all the best and time will tell. If PK gets dealt again than Bergevin may look a little better, but with the injury to Weber not sure how I think it is a bad trade. We've had some bad luck this year and hopefully next year we get an 82 game evaluation. Subban should be putting up good numbers in Nashville as he has a better group of defenders around him than Weber. I am more upset with the way Julien has handled the team (and the hiring of him) and the injuries that really set us back this year than the trade.  We start slow this year and Julien has to go and I think that is why Ducharme and Bouchard are now in the organisation. I can see Ducharme as head coach by 2020 and Julien either moving up or on as his contract expires depending upon the success  of the team.

If Weber is/was so good why did the Preds trade him in the first place? To get the younger, better player?  I'd bet there are 30 other GMs who wouldn't have made that deal.

[jeff33]

45 minutes ago, habs1952 said:

If Weber is/was so good why did the Preds trade him in the first place? To get the younger, better player?  I'd bet there are 30 other GMs who wouldn't have made that deal.

Thats why I said in my original post...like who would you NOT trade Weber for.  Like do the trade in reverse....its weber and patch and a 1st and something else. We got so monumentally hosed its mind blowing

The really aggravating part is there are teams like edmonton and toronto who could really use a guy like him and might give us something significant.

and instead, we are going to pretend like having him makes a difference until just like plekanec, he falls off a cliff completely in the very near future and we trade him for peanuts

[BigTed3]

56 minutes ago, jeff33 said:

Thats why I said in my original post...like who would you NOT trade Weber for.  Like do the trade in reverse....its weber and patch and a 1st and something else. We got so monumentally hosed its mind blowing

The really aggravating part is there are teams like edmonton and toronto who could really use a guy like him and might give us something significant.

and instead, we are going to pretend like having him makes a difference until just like plekanec, he falls off a cliff completely in the very near future and we trade him for peanuts

I'm curious to know, from the people who think we won the trade, what they think we could get for Weber in a trade now? If Weber's value is so high, does anyone think we could trade him for a player like Doughty, Hedman, Seth Jones, or so on? I don't think we'd get a top 10 D man in the league straight up for him...

[jeff33]

1 minute ago, BigTed3 said:

I'm curious to know, from the people who think we won the trade, what they think we could get for Weber in a trade now? If Weber's value is so high, does anyone think we could trade him for a player like Doughty, Hedman, Seth Jones, or so on? I don't think we'd get a top 10 D man in the league straight up for him...

a top 10 oh my god lol let me assure you on that its 150% NO . If edmonton wanted to give us klefbom right now 1 for 1 I would happily take that. 

[BigTed3]

2 hours ago, jeff33 said:

a top 10 oh my god lol let me assure you on that its 150% NO . If edmonton wanted to give us klefbom right now 1 for 1 I would happily take that. 

I think we can do better than Klefbom for Weber, but it does bring up an interesting question, so I'll throw it out there:

Who does everyone think is the best defenceman we can legitimately acquire in a 1 for 1 trade for Shea Weber this summer?

[Noob616]

Realistically it might be Klefbom just considering how much the Oilers undervalue him. Dougie Hamilton is a non-zero possibility, I think the Flames want to go all-in while Giordano is still amazing and there's still just weird swirling rumours around Hamilton. Hard to think of reasonable trades because it's so rare that teams trade away high end defensemen 1 for 1, they usually only move for contract related stuff like expiring UFA status etc or if a team is starting a rebuild, rarely do Subban-Weber type deals happen.

[BigTed3]

Funny, cause I was thinking about the possibility that the answer was Dougie Hamilton as well. One of the first names that popped into my head. I think the Flames would also love Weber, so it's in the realm of being feasible. Other players I think we could get 1 for 1 for Weber (with us maybe getting more in some of these deals):

- Nurse or Klefbom from Edm

- Byfuglien or Trouba from Wpg

- Dumba from Min

- Ellis or Ekholm from Nas

- Klingberg from Dal

- Keith from Chi

- Gardiner from Tor

- Ristolainen from Buf

- Gostisbehere from Phi

 

None of those guys are really clear-cut #1 D men. Some of them could be top-pairing guys, but I just don't see us getting a guy who's a top 10 D man in the league nor a guy who's a blue chip player with a good shot at being a #1. We're not getting Hedman or Subban or Karlsson or Doughty or Josi or Suter or Pietrangelo or Jones, we're not getting McAvoy or Sergachev or Ekblad or Rielly. I doubt we'd get OEL or Vlasic either. Maybe we'd be able to get a guy like Hanifin or Slavin based on recent reports out of Carolina, but those guys are also far from being a sure thing as #1 guys.

Bottom line is that Weber is still good, but with his age and contract, you're not getting a guy who's younger and better back, the way we gave up Subban to grab Shea. To me, this exercise just illustrates further how much of a bad trade we made...

 

[Habberwacky]

8 hours ago, habs1952 said:

If Weber is/was so good why did the Preds trade him in the first place? To get the younger, better player?  I'd bet there are 30 other GMs who wouldn't have made that deal.

Looking at the top D I could see a few who would not be interested or feeling pretty good ie. LA I have no problem with the complaints as that is what looking back is all about and I find that these types of trades have not usually gone well ie. McDonough or even the worst yet could be Sergachev. But at the time of the deal fans were perhaps 60-40 against it.  Losing tends to make these deals worse, I definitely think the Preds wanted to get a little younger and obviously liked PK.  But this trade did not kill us this year injuries, bad coaching and sitting on 8 or 9 million dollars in cap space did. The trade has clearly been a winner for the Preds so far. But lets see what happens in 2018-19

[jeff33]

1 hour ago, BigTed3 said:

Funny, cause I was thinking about the possibility that the answer was Dougie Hamilton as well. One of the first names that popped into my head. I think the Flames would also love Weber, so it's in the realm of being feasible. Other players I think we could get 1 for 1 for Weber (with us maybe getting more in some of these deals):

- Nurse or Klefbom from Edm

- Byfuglien or Trouba from Wpg

- Dumba from Min

- Ellis or Ekholm from Nas

- Klingberg from Dal

- Keith from Chi

- Gardiner from Tor

- Ristolainen from Buf

- Gostisbehere from Phi

 

None of those guys are really clear-cut #1 D men. Some of them could be top-pairing guys, but I just don't see us getting a guy who's a top 10 D man in the league nor a guy who's a blue chip player with a good shot at being a #1. We're not getting Hedman or Subban or Karlsson or Doughty or Josi or Suter or Pietrangelo or Jones, we're not getting McAvoy or Sergachev or Ekblad or Rielly. I doubt we'd get OEL or Vlasic either. Maybe we'd be able to get a guy like Hanifin or Slavin based on recent reports out of Carolina, but those guys are also far from being a sure thing as #1 guys.

Bottom line is that Weber is still good, but with his age and contract, you're not getting a guy who's younger and better back, the way we gave up Subban to grab Shea. To me, this exercise just illustrates further how much of a bad trade we made...

 

gardiner, keith and maybe klefbom. the rest? no way IMO. like the ghost is 25 years old and just had a 65 point year. no way ted!! 

I think we could do better in a trade as in maybe we could get a better fwd than klef is a dman, or a package, but 1 for 1....nobody would do what we did and get older and slower on purpose so cancel every single young d in the league at the A and most of the B level of players, ghost, risto etc.. and I think klefbom could actually really be the line of what you might be able to get back. other than of course making a lateral move for another old guy who used to be great like keith or chara or something.

 

[maas_art]

On 5/18/2018 at 5:26 PM, BigTed3 said:

Up until the Subban trade, Bergevin made a lot of dumb mistakes as a GM... Bouillon, Murray, Drewiske, Desharnais extension, etc. But the upside was that most of those mistakes were reversible or short-term. We suffered for them, but after a season or two, we moved on and the effects weren't as pronounced in the long-term (albeit I still believe Mouillon slowed down the development of Beaulieu/Tinordi/Pateryn, for example.are still people who think highly of them and who will give us a return in a trade. That might not be true in 2 years. So you need to deal them while they have value and not wait until it's too late.

Spot on. I dont think it will go down as one of the worst in team history but its in its own class as bad moves for Marc Bergevin. Its was, and is, a really bad trade. 

13 hours ago, Habberwacky said:

Not sure I have any complaints about Weber yet as the injury has made this year a right off. I look forward to seeing him back next year. 

Yeah, i think its unfair to criticize Weber when he played a very season, injured from game 1.  But unless he gets a top quality player lining up next to him, i cant see how he's not going to continue to regress, just based on age. 

12 hours ago, Noob616 said:

It wasn't just a loss of value as a 1-for-1 deal, it also indirectly opened up other holes on the roster. Subban played at an elite level with Hal Gill, Josh Gorges, Francis Bouillion, and late 30s Andrei Markov as partners, and put up a Norris calibre season this year playing on Nashville's shutdown pairing with Alexei Emelin until Ryan Ellis got back.

Bingo. And the thing is, it should have been brutally obvious to Bergevin too. It was a ridiculous, dumb move. Lets say that Weber played LD. Then maybe - maybe you could argue, ok, we traded PK and we can move Petry up to #1Rd and have a Weber-Petry top pairing, since we had lacked a solid #1LD for a few years (as markov aged). But no, we traded our #1RD for a worse #1RD with our second best Dman also a RD.   It was stupid and wholly predictable. 

 

10 hours ago, jeff33 said:

really aggravating part is there are teams like edmonton and toronto who could really use a guy like him and might give us something significant.

This, to me, is the absolute worst.   I dont think there's any way Weber still has the value PK did when we traded him (especially not after last year's injury plagued season) but if you were willing to accept young players/picsk/prospects I think you could get a small haul for him. An established roster player, blue chip prospect and high draft pick.   I even think you could see him to a bad GM like Chiarelli for something like Draisaitl 1 for 1 because of how desperate they are for #1d and how much centre depth they have.

And yet, I think MB probably considers Weber 'untouchable' - he's a guy you "build your team around" - which was maybe true, 7 or 8 years ago... 

9 hours ago, BigTed3 said:

I'm curious to know, from the people who think we won the trade, what they think we could get for Weber in a trade now? If Weber's value is so high, does anyone think we could trade him for a player like Doughty, Hedman, Seth Jones, or so on? I don't think we'd get a top 10 D man in the league straight up for him...

I think you could get him 1 for 1 for an unsigned Karlsson.  Melnyk is such a cheapskate the idea of a signed #1 Dman who will eat up nearly $8m of the cap while costing him between $3 and 6m for the next several years is probably very appealing.  Sure, Weber is no longer in the same class as Karlsson but he'll still be good for them and cushion their cap in the process. 

[Windoe]

Deciding to trade PK was not the bad part.  We'd trade anyone if the return was right, and PK's time was up in Montreal.

What made this a bad trade was the return.

MB was so willing to dump his problem child for the likable man mountain that he shot himself in the foot and only got a generous 75% fair market value in return.

But, and this has been my biggest point all along, deciding to trade PK is not the reason MB should be fired, and the return he got is still only one small reason...the biggest reasons MB needs to go, if he doesn't land Tavares are:

1) He hasn't fixed our most glaring need, center.  If he can't get Tavares, or a real #1 center before next year starts, he's had his chance.

2) He's not the right person for the rebuild.

3) He's publicly called his team out for attitude problems.  This did not go over well with the players, but will likely make them more willing to waive their NMCs which could facilitate a trade for a 1C, which may actually be genius, but I have my doubts.

4a) 2 seconds for Shaw and then the Shaw contract

4b) The PK return

In fairness, I have liked:

1) Getting Vanek for the playoffs

2) Getting Radulov, awesome move

3) I liked getting two 2nds for Eller, (didn't like then getting Shaw for two 2nds)

4) Danault trade was solid for us

5) Picking up Byron worked out well for us

[CANADIENS27]

21 hours ago, habs1952 said:

If Weber is/was so good why did the Preds trade him in the first place? To get the younger, better player?  I'd bet there are 30 other GMs who wouldn't have made that deal.

Bergevin basically handed Nashville a chance to get rid of an expensive contract and that was after he finally got the excuse he was looking for to move Subban.  

 

 

[caperns61]

11 hours ago, Windoe said:

Deciding to trade PK was not the bad part.  We'd trade anyone if the return was right, and PK's time was up in Montreal.

What made this a bad trade was the return.

MB was so willing to dump his problem child for the likable man mountain that he shot himself in the foot and only got a generous 75% fair market value in return.

But, and this has been my biggest point all along, deciding to trade PK is not the reason MB should be fired, and the return he got is still only one small reason...the biggest reasons MB needs to go, if he doesn't land Tavares are:

1) He hasn't fixed our most glaring need, center.  If he can't get Tavares, or a real #1 center before next year starts, he's had his chance.

2) He's not the right person for the rebuild.

3) He's publicly called his team out for attitude problems.  This did not go over well with the players, but will likely make them more willing to waive their NMCs which could facilitate a trade for a 1C, which may actually be genius, but I have my doubts.

4a) 2 seconds for Shaw and then the Shaw contract

4b) The PK return

In fairness, I have liked:

1) Getting Vanek for the playoffs

2) Getting Radulov, awesome move

3) I liked getting two 2nds for Eller, (didn't like then getting Shaw for two 2nds)

4) Danault trade was solid for us

5) Picking up Byron worked out well for us

Bad down the middle is an issue you say, but trading Eller for two seconds was a good trade, that confuses me. Especially when we only have one centerman who is even capable of playing at the NHL , Danualt. I get Eller is not that number one guy but him and Danault could be quite capable of handling the middle two slots behind a number one like Tavares

Subban was a brutal trade just like Roy was just like Chelios was. All done by managers with to big an ego and putting themselves above the need of a team. That's it, that's the only reason.

I wish people would cut the crap about Subban not being liked. So what, who cares if he was or not. He was an elite defenseman. Who defended everyone of his teammates every single time he was in the eye of the media hurricane ...That's is a team player period period period. Its not a popularity contest.

Just because certain players could not adjust to his personality, that is their problem,  those players should have been moved not an elite puck moving deeman who you just signed.

1. Vanek was a steal, but hardly helped when he was moved to the 4th line by therrien.

2. Rads, used the habs as a spring board back to the NHL. I good move would be to have kept him. Which would not have cost us any players and allows your best players to slide down the lineup.

3. Phewt see above

4. Good trade yes

5. Good pick up yes

Subban is enough to have a GM fired in the NHL, especially now that the team has spiralled out of control.