MONTREAL — Sometimes, situations between players and teams and cities just become entirely untenable, and that doesn’t mean anyone is giving up on anyone.
But that’s a sentiment which doesn’t have to be relayed to Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin, who has already established himself as the NHL’s most talented purveyor of the bait-and-switch. He wasn’t going to trade P.K. Subban, remember?
Now Bergevin has to deal with an entirely out-of-control situation with talented 23-year-old forward Alex Galchenyuk. He has been demoted to the fourth-line wing, with two goals and zero assists through the first 10 games. It’s a situation exacerbated by the Habs’ supremely disappointing 2-7-1 record, worst in the Eastern Conference. The 3-6-2 Rangers come into the Bell Centre on Saturday night for a Hockey Night in Canada game between two teams that are trying to keep their seasons relevant at least until (American) Thanksgiving.
“We won’t give up on the kid,” Bergevin told reporters on Thursday. “But yes, it’s frustrating. I won’t hide it. It can be frustrating.”
It is not uncommon for talented young players to go through slumps, which Bergevin pointed out started when Galchenyuk was hurt in Los Angeles back in December of 2016. It’s also not uncommon for people to start piling on, especially when that young player made a stink over the summer as a restricted free agent and, after so many rumors about him possibly being traded, ended up signing a three-year, $14.7 million deal, carrying a hefty annual salary-cap hit of $4.9 million. It’s also not uncommon for that much-maligned player — whether logically or illogically — to be a little bristly with the media.
But where this city takes the cake is when former Canadiens player and coach Mario Tremblay went on local radio and said that Galchenyuk has been to “detox” for substance abuse on two separate occasions — which was not a known fact and would be confidential in the NHLPA program, or any other program in the world. This is the same city where former Islanders great Mike Bossy lives and works, and occasionally says something outlandish on the radio like the possible upcoming trade of John Tavares or that the Canadiens should strip the captaincy from American Max Pacioretty.
Then, almost simultaneously as Bergevin was speaking on Thursday, agent Dan Milstein tweeted that coach Claude Julien “has never successfully coach [a] Russian.” It was a profoundly dumb thing to say, A) Because Galchenyuk was born in America to parents from Belarus, and B) Milstein does not represent Galchenyuk and shouldn’t be talking about other agents’ players. He later acknowledged his mistake.
But in the echo camber of Montreal, it continues to resonate. There continues to be this cloud around Galchenyuk and his tenure here, and it’s not going away. If he were playing top-line minutes and they were winning, it still wouldn’t change the minds of so many in this beautiful city filled with strong opinions. They want to love a Francophile, elegant and skilled and graceful. They want the reincarnation of Jean Beliveau, in personality as much as success.
It’s not going to happen with Galchenyuk, and it’s only going to get worse. It might not be that easy to move him right now, having fallen out of the good graces of two well-respected coaches in Julien and his predecessor, Michel Therrien. The Rangers, for one, are dying for a centerman, but if Galchenyuk couldn’t stick in the middle for either coach, what makes you think it might work under Alain Vigneault? (Not to mention what the Rangers would have to send back in order to clear the cap space.)
So whether Bergevin is playing another game through the media with his pseudo votes of confidence almost doesn’t matter. Galchenyuk is talented enough that someone out there with ample cap space — Hurricanes? Oilers? Predators? Dare I say, Islanders? — will think they can turn him around.
But what’s become clear is that through fault on both sides, the marriage between Galchenyuk and Montreal has crossed the line of irreparable damages. Better to pull the cord now before it gets any worse.
Spotty spotters
I’m not going to believe the NHL is serious about concussions until things like what happened on Monday night with Kings goalie Jonathan Quick stops. Quick was inadvertently hit in the head by teammate Derek Forbort, clearly shaken up, but play continued for another 1:48. NHL-mandated spotters, not involved with the team, called down to have him taken out and tested.
It should have happened sooner. Then the team argued against it, their medical staff said Quick was OK after he went to the bench for, oh, 15 seconds — and then refs said Quick only had to leave for one sequence.
He sat on the bench for 37 seconds, then returned, never getting fully tested.
“Obviously, the process did not operate as smoothly as we would have liked,” deputy commissioner Bill Daly told USA Today in what might be the understatement of the year. Worse, it might have jeopardized Quick’s health, but hey, what a gutty competitor, right?
Torts’ Dubi
There’s a lot of history between John Tortorella and Brandon Dubinsky, and not all of it’s good, dating back to their days with the Rangers. But this might be the strangest, most disciplinarian thing Torts has done to his rugged forward, taking the ‘A’ off his sweater as the two try to get him going in Columbus.
“It was a tough conversation, without a doubt,” Dubinsky told reporters. “Yeah, I was pissed off. But you’re not always going to be happy. I have to move forward, look after myself, help this team get better and win hockey games.”
Tortorella explained it as, “We need his play to do more of the speaking than to worry about a letter on his chest.” The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh?
Stay tuned. . .
. . . to the Vegas Golden Knights. After such a surprising start (7-1-0) that carried such an emotional load, they now have a bit of a controversy brewing with their lone big-money free-agent signing, Vadim Shipachoyov. Vegas signed the Russian out of the KHL to a two-year, $9 million deal, but have now sent him back and forth from the AHL twice. Their roster is jammed with one-way contracts, his not included, so he might just be getting the short end of the stick.
Either way, he didn’t come from Russia to ride busses in the minors, and something is eventually going to have to give here.
Parting Shot
Hockey nicknames are ridiculous. Classic story is the first day Wojtek Wolski showed up to the Rangers and someone called him “Wolly.”
Well, at least the Blues can make fun of it: