The Rangers, only two points out of a playoff spot, have waived the white flag, sending out a letter to their fans explaining that aging participants in a run that produced a Stanley Cup finalist and two conference finalists in seven seasons are about to be scattered to the hockey winds in order to build a brighter tomorrow.

The letter from the Canadiens, by contrast a club 10 points in arrears of the second wild card and with seven teams to catch, has been lost by Canada Post. Or Marc Bergevin’s dog ate it or he hit the wrong button, just like in dealing with Alexander Radulov, PK Subban and Andrei Markov before they all went away. The trading deadline is 13 days away and the besieged GM has picked up neither an ax to take to Nos-longer-Glorieux, nor his pen.

For Bergevin to have to announce that the five-year plan he began upon his appointment in 2012 has, due to miscalculation, become a 10-year plan is not easy; certainly not as easy as several Canadiens have taken their shifts through seven and five-game losing streaks this season.

So what to do from here? Moving a good solder of 14-years service, Tomas Plekanec, 35, will be difficult for the Canadiens only for sentimental reasons. Hardly no-brainers, however, are decisions on Max Pacioretty and Carey Price, both 30, and Shea Weber 32.

Bad as is Montreal’s current 26th overall standing, a full season of the currently indisposed Weber would not require the additional returns of Guy Lapointe and Steve Shutt to project the Canadiens as a playoff contender again in 2018-19. Goalies and premier defensemen generally last longer at the top of their games than do forwards, which brings us back to Bergevin’s toughest call–on Pacioretty.

A study of the declining production numbers for scorers in their fourth decade makes a strong case for the Canadiens getting as much as they can for Pacioretty while he has next season left on his contract. But there are also energizer bunnies like Michel Bergeron, 32; Alex Ovechkin 32’ Evgeni Malkin 31; and the 30-year-olds Sidney Crosby, Anze Kopitar and Claude Giroux who show not even preliminary signs of infirmity.

Plus there are other factors to consider in trading a long serving and admired player out of Montreal, like maybe another round of broken windows on St. Catharines Street.

You can blow off a few years in LA, where the Kings missed the playoffs five straight seasons while the foundation for two Stanley Cups was being laid. Or in Chicago, where the Blackhawks had been in the wilderness for a decade and had little left to lose in revenues by jumping into a crock pot to slow cook three Cup winners in six years.

Unprecedented would be the storied Canadiens stripping themselves down to endure five miserable years of daily admonishment that they are only rebuilding the Emperor’s wardrobe. The last Cup was in 1993 and Montreal has been in only two conference finals since, but the Canadiens’ longest playoff droughts ever were just three years and only twice. They came out of the last one, between 1999 and 2001. thanks to a Hart Trophy season by Jose Theodore – did that really happen? – and with veterans, not kids.

Now, on the theory that maybe we can’t knock it until the Canadiens try it, perhaps we are selling the patience level in Montreal even shorter than David Desharnais. But we don’t think so and neither obviously, did Bergevin when he exchanged PK Subban, an estranged 27-year old, for 31-year old Weber, with no futures to sweeten the pot.

Whether or not Andrei Markov was worthy of the money he was asking at age 38, Bergevin overpaid in replacing him with a five-year $23 million, deal for free agent Karl Alzner. And an attempt to further patch the defense with 39-year-old Mark Streit was a disaster.

Then, of course, there was the Bergevin dealing of the Canadiens’ best prospect, defenseman Mikhail Sergachev, to Tampa Bay for Jonathan Drouin, age, in this case, not being a reason for criticism so much as taking a high-end Francophone prospect who had floundered in low visibility Tampa Bay and making him into a deer in the especially high beams of Montreal.

Bergevin has admitted Drouin would be better off on the wing rather than center, but if Pacioretty is playing on the third line, so wing is the only Montreal position of some strength, which further calls into question the wisdom of the trade. Without Markov, and now Weber for the last seven weeks, a team that was fourth in goals against in 2016 is now 24th. And with Sergachev living up to billing in Tampa, pretty much all Montreal has to show for the deal is a little boy so far lost.

Just like the pressure to get a French star in rouge, blanc and bleu is immense, so is the arm twisting to never give up on next season and the one after that. Habs’ television ratings are down significantly, largely attributable to the dealing of Subban, a big and talented defenseman with a bigger-than-life personality, love it or leave it. So it is not likely that owner and CEO Geoff Molson will take a downturn in passion for Les Habs as license to tear them up, more as a mandate to try and beef them up.

Brendan Gallagher is only 25; Alex Galchenyuk is 23, Artturi Lehkonen 22, Nikita Scherbak 22, and Victor Mete 22 on a team that was in the playoffs a year ago. Thus for all the daily demonization of Bergevin, the cupboard is not totally bare, all the more reason to believe that in a conference where seven true contenders for playoff spots teams currently are separated by nine points, the Canadiens could compete next year with a healthy Weber.

Making it all the more tempting has been the current 2-1-1 stretch in which the Habs beat Anaheim and Ottawa, were victimized mostly by Plekanec penalties in a 5-3 loss against surging Philly, and outplayed the mighty Predators in Subban’s return, only to lose in the shootout. A four-game trip beginning this week may tell Bergevin more, but the Habs do not look like a team that has given up.

“We keep battling, you can’t take that away from us,” said Pacioretty, while waiting to be taken away himself to a contender. “We’ve got some guys out, some guys playing positions they don’t normally play. Guys are punching in and giving our team a chance to win games.”

With Weber out, Jeff Petry and Mete have responded to greater responsibilities. Lehkonen stripped Jake Voracek and scored a pretty shorthanded breakaway goal in Philly. He has five points in his last three games for a club 27th in scoring despite an eighth- ranked power play,

“Winning battles has been one of our challenges,” says Coach Claude Julien. “We’ve talked about that since the beginning of the year.

“We’ve gotten a little better but we have to be better than that. You bring in guys like Scherbak, who have a little more size, and you hope you are going to win more battles. It’s about being smart, but it also helps to be big and strong.”

Might the fans be big about accepting a painful start-over? Could Julien, a coach with winning and teaching credentials, have a strong-enough cache to survive it?

“Once again, we’re close but we’re not good enough,” said Julien after the Canadiens came from behind twice and almost a third time before Ivan Provorov hit the empty net for Philadelphia. “We’re always missing a little something.

“There are games when there’s little mistakes here and there that cost us. That’s what we need to limit and correct.”

Goaltending does that to a degree, but if the world-class Price (2.92 and .907) is not the problem, he hasn’t been the solution, either. The Canadiens need a power forward plus the strength of their convictions that they need to sell players and a new plan to their fans. Both are tough sledding in a city that cares so much, it would not care to see the team of Richard, Beliveau, Lafleur and 23 Cups go into any hibernation from gratification.

So should Bergevin, who apparently will survive into next season, buy, sell, or take the clearly most popular option–resign in shame? As the deadline fast approaches, the GM of still the most celebrated franchise in hockey history is also ranked No. 1 among all persons you wouldn’t want to be.

Join the Discussion: » 5 Comments » Post New Comment

» The Penguins Suck it Up

» More Than Ever, the Winner Will Earn It

» We Have a Right to Know

» It's a Good Plan, but Only for This Time

» Taking a Shot Before There's a Shot