French Media Protecting Habs Lame Duck Francophone GM

Bergevin "What Me Worry?"

It's a bit sad and a bit funny to see the French sports media squirming in abject pain and humiliation over its hitherto unequivocal support for Habs GM Marc Bergevin, despite the ongoing disaster that is the 2017 edition of the Montreal Canadiens.

While the English media across Canada has been quick to call the latest version of the Canadiens a pig, the French media continues to put lipstick on the beast in a sad attempt to deny what is apparent to all.
The Montreal Canadiens are talentless group of uninspired veterans and under-qualified and disappointing rookies, bolstered by also-rans, has-beens and cast-offs fobbed off on the hapless Bergevin, who in a vain attempt to show some action and movement, chose to trade his losers for other losers in order to distract fans from the painful reality.
While the English media is openly talking about the Bergevin disaster, the French media is blithely minding its P's and Q's, lest they attack one of their own.

There is an old saying in Yiddish, a bit vulgar that goes like this;
"Ven de putsch shtait, 
   de sayichal gait!"
While it is rather eloquent in Yiddish, its English translation...well, not so much.

"When the penis is erect, good sense is lost."
Yikes!
And so when it comes to criticizing a francophone GM, the francophone media has lost all good sense in sugarcoating reality.....
Bergevin has been an utter disaster and cannot dig himself or the team out of this mess.
French or English.....We all know it.
The difference is that the French media won't admit in print or on TV what they say in private because Bergevin is one of them, a francophone who was collectively touted as another saviour of the Canadiens and another symbol of francophones reclaiming their rightful property from the hated English interlopers who, by the way, ran the Montreal Canadiens so successfully for decades.

Think I'm seeing things through anglo-tinted glasses?
This is what the English media is saying ;

“One glance at the roster Marc Bergevin assembled for this year’s version of the Montreal Canadiens would’ve incited most to predict they’d be an average team.

They were right on course to prove that through their first 19 games, losing seven of their first eight before firing off seven wins in their next 11. And then they were the first team in the NHL to suffer a regulation-time loss to the 31st-ranked Arizona Coyotes last Thursday.

A 6-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday at the Bell Centre on Hockey Night in Canada certainly helped reinforce what the statistics say about the Canadiens: They are not average. They are bad.

One quarter of the way through the season they rank in the bottom-third of the league in nearly every relevant category—from their place in the standings (27th) to their goals per game average (2.32!) to their goals-against average (3.50!) to their… well, we’ll save some of this for what follows.” Eric Engels-Sportsnet

“How do you spot a counterfeit NHL playoff ticket?
It’s printed on thin paper. There’s no barcode. And it contains the word, “Montreal.”

The Canadiens, meanwhile, have sort of resembled the Titanic — they look good until they hit the ice. ” Michael Traikos..National Post

Over in the Quebec French press, nary a word of discord.
Nobody has called for Bergevin's head.
Instead, they concentrate on the state of Carey Price's marriage and the fact that they expect Bergevin to be busy making deals to strengthen the team.
It's more than just sad.
The only francophone who has overtly criticized Bergevin is the embittered Serge Savard, himself fired rather abruptly and according to him for a lot less than Bergevin.
In a French radio interview;

“I won two Stanley Cups as GM and was fired after losing four games at the beginning of the season" 
This year we had two guys, our two best players last year, one named Markov and the Radulov, both of whom wanted to stay in Montreal and who we let sign elsewhere.”

Savard went on to dismiss the PK Subban trade as disastrous, an error in judgment that now haunts the Canadiens.

Let me just comment on how badly Bergevin botched the Radulov and Markov situations.

When Radulov chose to go the free-agent route after rejecting the Habs final offer, Bergevin inexplicably withdrew his offer, probably piqued at Radulov. When Radulov didn't get any better offers he took the same offer from the Dallas Stars that the Canadiens had previously made (but no longer on the table.) An incredulous Bergevin could not understand why Radulov signed elsewhere for the same money and when asked about it, Radulov said the Dallas was the best offer he could get at the time and that he shook on the deal with Dallas and that a deal is a deal. Had Bergevin left his 'best' offer on the table during the free-agency period, Dallas would have been forced to beat that offer substantially, something that perhaps they would not have done. It was a bonehead mistake driven by hubris and anger,

As for Markov, it is true he was holding out for an overpriced offer, but what Bergevin should have known is that Markov was set on going home to Russia with his new wife, but would have stayed another year or two had the Habs met his demands. Bergevin let his pride take over and even with plenty of cap space, he let Markov go, an unpardonable sin.
That bad decision was coupled with letting two other starting defencemen leave the team for nothing in return. Alexi Emelin along with Nathan Beaulieu, may not have been fantastic, but their replacements are far worse. Bergevin's motive's and bizarre decisions in gutting his blue line were never questioned by the media, but the disastrous move sealed the Habs blue line fate.

His big move in the off-season was to acquire francophone Jonathan Drouin, for first round draft pick Mikhail Sergachev. The French media were exuberant over the trade as you might have guessed, but it seems Tampa got the better of the deal up to now.
Not only did the nineteen-year-old defenceman Sergachev make the opening lineup, he's been killing it, scoring 5 goals and nine assists in his first twenty games. The best forward for the Habs, Brendan Gallagher has the same 14 points!

Geoff Molson.. In over his head

The real culprit in all this is idiot owner and managing partner of the Canadians, Geoff Molson, who has placed all his eggs in the Marc Bergevin basket and extending his overly generous contract to 2022.
Admitting his error in judgment in placing his blind trust in Bergevin won't be easy for the silver-spooned lightweight and so we can expect to see the hapless Bergevin remain in his job, lurching from one bad trade to another.
And yes there will be trades, bad trades, useless trades.

Bergevin set this team on its present course with the wildly unpopular trading of PK Subban and it's been downhill since, lurching from one disaster to another, all with the acquiescence of the in-over-his-head, inexperienced Molson, living in his ivory tower, too detached from reality and the common fan to realize the negative implications of the trade.
Failing to understand what Subban meant to the fan base is the same out of touch decision that led the Habs to go to paperless tickets that has season ticket holders absolutely furious.

In the meantime, the French press remains silent on the potential replacement of Bergevin with nobody yet on the French side brave enough to come out against one of their own by demanding Bergevin's sacking.
Compare this with the treatment of anglo Bob Gainey or Randy Cunneyworth who were run out of town by a vindictive French press.
And so, until a francophone replacement is available, everyone will just grin and bear it, pretending that the ship is not sinking, when it is manifestly evident that the starboard list is serious and that the waves are lapping over the bow.
The Canadiens mediocrity is in part based on the language issue, where 95% of coaches are automatically rejected because they speak no French. Decisions like the Jonathan Drouin trade are based on language and not straight hockey motives and that has contributed to where the Habs are now.
Let us remember that Gerald Gallant (who basically ran the Habs under Michel Therrien) is absolutely shining as head coach in Las Vegas and should his team make the playoffs, a shoe-in for coach of the year. Because he is English (with no French), he was never in consideration as a head coach for the Canadiens.
Affirmative action by definition leads to the promotion of inferior candidates and putting the French language above talent in the incredibly competitive atmosphere of the NHL is what the French media has been pushing for years, erroneously claiming that promoting francophones over all others on the ice and behind the bench won't affect performance.
The chickens have come home to roost.

By the way, the Habs fans are not as loyal as we've been brainwashed into believing and so you might expect to see empty seats very soon.
The Canadiens are between a rock and a French place, where blowing up the team isn't an option either, given the fragile market that the Montreal sports scene is.
The sellouts that Molson has been accustomed will fade when corporate season ticket holders realize that customers aren't interested in attending games.