The Official "I Will Miss" Bob Gainey Thread...hijacked.

[DonKay]

Personally, I think Andre Savard did just as good a job.

He took over with far less than what Gainey had when he took over.

He hired better coaches under his tenure, drafted better under his tenure and the team had its best playoff run under his tenure.

[TheLeftCoast]

Give your head a shake.

[CH1]

Using making the playoffs as a barometer isn't the way to go in my humble opinion.

I would say the Bruins are closer to competing for a Stanley Cup than we are. I hope I'm wrong. We shall see in a few years.

I've never been a big fan of Holmgren, however.

In Gainey's case, 7 yrs after the fact, it's still not obvious what type of team he was trying to build. His biggest moves involved hiring (and then firing) his buddy Carbo.

He was very passive. He let many assets walk away as UFA's for nothing, content to replace them with players of approximately the same size, talent and salary.

His whole tenure involved trading four quarters for a dollar. Not a smart way to build up one's wealth (or one's hockey team)

[Habspatrol]

Sounds about right to me.

I think he's too conservative for my liking, but I respect the guy and wish him well.

[Le_Slacker]

I had higher expectations overall... but I'll miss him
There weren't many moves where I was all the way behind him for
and there weren't many moves that I was totally against...
I just thought he did a solid job...
any markets outside of Montreal/Toronto would have liked BG's 5 years

[WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou]

Failing to get Lecavalier was part of his undoing, although getting Lecavalier might have also proved to be suicidal, had he been able to pull it off. That contract of Vinny's is poison - even worse than the Gomez contract.

I don't know how close Gainey actually got to finalizing that deal (or even if he tried at all) but perception is reality these days and pro sports is a results-oriented business. Gainey didn't get the results he was paid to get. End of story.

[puck_in_net]

I think that is part of the problem. Outside of MTL/TO just about anyone would do as GM....point being no one cares.

In MTL/TO you need to be the best, have the best in order to keep fans on your side....which i think was Bob's downfall.

This isn't some 2 bit hockey operation here....this is the f*cking Montreal Canadians....the greatest franchise in hockey. Having someone who bassicly kept us middle of the pack is simply not good enough for a club like ours

[DonKay]

If I'm gonna have a GM that is gonna hang himself I'd rather have a pro active GM than a GM that lives by the status quo.

Gainey's downfall is the fact he wasn't aggressive enough at specific moments in his tenure.

And me and Wazoo have agreed for a while that the turning point in Gainey's downfall was the trade deadline two years ago when we were sitting a top the conference and he did NOTHING to get the help to take us to another level.

That hurt the team, not giving that edition the boost it could have used to become a contender.

From that point on its been a free fall for Gainey.

[rouah]

Well, you talked about results earlier. No playoffs in two of the three years as a GM...

So, DK, is Andre Savard delivered?

[DonKay]

You gotta look at the circumstances Rouah.

Andre Savard came is as GM to rebuild, he came in here with a different mandate than BG.

Savard took over with a bare cupboard of prospects and non NHL caliber players on the roster.

Gainey came in with some good young players in waiting, Higgins,Pleks,Komisarek,Ribeiro,Theo,Hainsey,Perez oghin,Markov, etc...

Savard had nothing to work with yet he built the team into a team that had just as much chance of making the playoffs as several of Gainey's teams.

[Krustchev]

Rouah = strive to be mediocre. In the reality that is professional sports, all of our GM's since Serge Savard have been "failures." Just making the playoffs after seven seasons is not good enough. So yes, you could say that Gainey sucked less than Savard, who sucked less than Houle, but in the end, they all failed, so we move on and try and find someone better. Maybe we will and maybe we won't but you don't stop trying. Look at the Rangers, for example. Took them 54 years to finally get it right.

[DonKay]

I think out of the three Andre Savard came the closest to getting the job he was asked to do done.

He was asked to re-stock the prospects and start building the youth and developing them.

[Exit716]

Awesome. More of the same.
I expect McGuire's head to explode at some point.

[hablov]

I will miss BG. Liked that he was a person a few words and extremely calm and didn't let the (franco) media control his moves.

[Krustchev]

Don't let any brain matter splatter all over you.

[Le_Slacker]

One extremely positive from the Gainey era:

Bob proved that higher-end free agents will sign in Montreal

[Sal_Butera]

The same Andre Savard "drafting guru xtra ordinaire" when offered a 2003 1st round pick by the Bruins for Eric Weinrich in 2001, said he preferred Patrice Traverse instead?

There's a reason Andre Savard has been sitting at his home in Quebec City & has never come close to being a candidate for another NHL GM's position - he was the figment of Rejean Tremblay's mind & apparently u'rs Donnie....

[WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou]

"His whole tenure involved trading four quarters for a dollar."

Right on, chiggins. That one sentence perfectly encapsulates the Gainey era. Who is Marc-Andre Bergeron? He is merely Sheldon Souray or Mark Streit by another name. No better, no worse; just different. Gainey made the Habs different on the surface, but deep down this is the same random group of mis-matched underachievers he inherited from Andre Savard.

[mtl79]

I'm already starting to miss Bob Gainey now that Gauthier is the acting GM.....

[DonKay]

I'm not Gauthier fan but I'd rather go with change than nothing at all.