When a tall, dignified chap in a well-tailored suit came strolling into the press dining room at the Bell Centre before the Canadiens home opener, it struck me.

View Large

Montreal Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey (right) announces Jacques Martin as the team's new head coach during a press conference in Montreal Monday June 1 2009.

Photograph by : Montreal Gazette

ARTICLE TOOLS

• Printer friendly
• E-mail

Font:

• *
• *
• *
• *

There was the best general manager the Canadiens have had since the early years of Serge Savard's reign, before Savard got too caught up in business activities to give the GM job his full attention.

No, I'm not talking about Bob Gainey. I'm referring to Andre Savard, the quiet, soft- spoken judge of talent who had so much to do with building the once-powerful Ottawa Senators and who, given time and sufficient support from on high, might have done the same here.

Despite their public images, it is Andre Savard who was calm, cool and collected during his tenure here, while Gainey has been in panic mode as often as not.

During Savard's brief reign as GM (from November 2000 until Gainey came aboard in the spring of 2003, with Savard still running the 2003 draft) the Canadiens drafted Mike Komisarek, Alexander Perezhogin, Tomas Plekanec, Christopher Higgins, Andrei Kostitsyn, Maxim Lapierre, Ryan O'Byrne and Jaroslav Halak, the latter with the 271st pick in 2003.

With Savard carrying on as assistant GM, the Habs in subsequent years drafted Kyle Chipchura, Alexei Yemelin, Mikhail Grabovski, Gregory Stewart, Mark Streit, Carey Price, Guillaume Latendresse, Matt D'Agostini, Sergei Kostitsyn and Pavel Valentenko. After Savard moved on to the Pittsburgh Penguins, Gainey in 2007 drafted Ryan McDonagh, Max Pacioretty, P.K. Subban and Yannick Webber. (It's far too early to say anything at all about the 2008 or '09 drafts.)

What is striking is how many of these young players have been dumped or lost by Gainey. Komisarek went to the Leafs as a free agent, Perezhogin and Valentenko returned to Russia, the valuable Higgins was dealt with McDonagh and Valentenko to the Rangers for Scott Gomez and his mega-contract, Streit was lost to free agency, Yemelin has yet to leave Russia, Grabovski was dealt to the Leafs for the draft rights to Greg Pateryn and a second-rounder in 2010, while Chip-chura, Stewart, Subban, Webber and spoiled-brat Sergei Kostitsyn are all in that never-never land somewhere between the Canadiens third and fourth lines and Hamilton.

It would appear Pacioretty and D'Agostini are securely established here, but they are still at the stage in their careers when that could change in a hurry. Then there is Guillaume Latendresse, the 45th choice in 2005, who is on the verge of playing himself right out of the NHL with a single point so far this season.

If the young players drafted and developed during the Gainey years are the future of this organization, in other words, the Canadiens are in big trouble.

When you review Gainey's own draft choices after six years, you can find only one who is anywhere near star status in the NHL - and the

jury is still very much out on Carey Price, with ninth-rounder Halak outplaying him and standing third in the league with a 1.86 goals-against average and a .921 save percentage, compared with Price's 3.36 and .886. Price showed a lot of class in facing the media yesterday, but ultimately he'll have to prove his worth on the ice.

Even with the Canadiens on a modest two-game winning streak, it's plain that Gainey's plan to throw out the baby with the bath water during the offseason has not magically yielded a Stanley Cup contender. Jacques Martin has this bunch playing well defensively, and they're better with Halak in goal than they were with Price, but there is still no reason to believe this team is capable of making it past the second round of the playoffs - if indeed they make it to the playoffs at all.

Are they better than the team that finished first overall in the Eastern Conference as recently as the spring of 2008? Obviously not. So why did Gainey feel compelled to blow up what had been the best Canadiens squad in 15 years? Why the panic?

Yes, panic. When you look back at Gainey's tenure as GM of the Canadiens, that's the first word that comes to mind: panic. From the panicky signing of Jose Theodore to a lucrative three-year deal to the decision to send everyone from Koivu to Komisarek to Kostopoulos and Alex Kovalev packing, panic has been the rule of the day since Gainey took over.

Why has no one noticed? Probably because Gainey projects such an air of outward calm. Because, barring a few occasions like last spring's post-mortem news conference, he seems as unflappable as Mount Rushmore.

But what were the firings of Claude Julien and Guy Carbonneau, if not panicky and premature?

There have been good moves along the way. Glen Metropolit, for instance, picked up on waivers from Philadelphia. Roman Hamrlik, signed as a free agent. Craig Rivet for Josh Gorges was at least a push, given their relative ages and salaries. But for every player like Metropolit or Hamrlik or Gorges, you can point to someone who got away with no compensation at all, like Sheldon Souray, or with virtually no compensation, like Cristobal Huet.

It is not a pretty record. If it belonged to someone without Gainey's enormous reputation in this town (Andre Savard, for instance) it would have meant a pink slip at the end of last season.

As it is, the best you can say for Bob Gainey is that he is doing a whole lot better than Brian Burke.

jacktodd46@hotmail.com