Former Canadiens GM on Blue Jackets' radar

Former Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin is on the Blue Jackets’ radar in their search for a new general manager, according to The Fourth Period’s Dennis Bernstein.

Bergevin, 58, has been in NHL front offices for nearly two decades after ending his 1,191-game NHL career in 2004. After spending seven years with the Blackhawks in scouting, coaching and front-office roles, he was tabbed as the GM and executive vice president of hockey operations of the Canadiens ahead of the 2012-13 campaign.

He spent over nine seasons with Montreal, presiding over one of the most unexpected Stanley Cup Final appearances in recent memory in 2021. The wheels came off the Canadiens immediately, though, and he was fired in late November 2021 after a 6-15-2 start to the following campaign. Head coach Dominique Ducharme followed suit, paving the way for Martin St. Louis to land his first role as an NHL head coach.

In the last few months of his tenure with Montreal, Bergevin was criticized heavily for his decision to draft defenseman Logan Mailloux with the team’s 2021 first-round pick. Mailloux had played in Sweden during his draft year due to the Ontario Hockey League suspending operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, he was charged with defamation and criminal photography for “sending explicit pictures of a sexual act without the consent of his partner.”

Mailloux stated before the 2021 draft that he didn’t want to be selected, wanting to focus on personal growth. Without a formal NHL draft renunciation process in place, though, the Canadiens selected him anyway. The NHL initially barred Mailloux from playing in the league after being drafted, but the ban was lifted before this season after a meeting with league commissioner Gary Bettman. He spent most of the season on assignment to AHL Laval but made his NHL debut in Montreal’s final game.

Many of Bergevin’s biggest signings as Canadiens GM regarding total value haven’t panned out. The largest of them all, Carey Price’s eight-year, $84M extension signed in 2017, was worth it for his two electric playoff appearances in 2020 and 2021, but through no fault of Bergevin’s remains on Montreal’s books longer than they’d like with him unable to play again due to knee injuries. Two deals signed less than a week apart in 2020 — a six-year, $39M deal for Brendan Gallagher and a seven-year, $38.5M deal for Josh Anderson — have saddled current Canadiens GM Kent Hughes with some pricey cap hits for injury-prone players that have struggled to meet expectations since signing.

Since being fired by the Habs, Bergevin has worked with the Kings as a senior advisor to GM Rob Blake.

Columbus remains on the hunt for a GM after firing longtime manager Jarmo Kekäläinen in February. He also drew recent criticism for his offseason hiring of Mike Babcock as head coach, who’d been criticized multiple times by his former players for improper treatment and alleged verbal abuse since being fired by the Maple Leafs in 2019. Babcock never coached a game for Columbus, resigning as head coach at the beginning of training camp after the NHL and NHLPA opened an investigation into further allegations of improper behavior.

There haven’t been any other known candidates for the Blue Jackets’ GM vacancy. The search is being led by interim GM and president of hockey operations John Davidson.