Pour ceux qui n’ont pas un abonnement avec The Athletic, voici un extrait très intéressant de l’entrevue entre MB et Arpon Basu:
When I asked about O’Reilly, they’re asking for Poehling,” Bergevin said while sitting in a luxury suite at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto just prior to the season opener last week. “That’s a starter. And a second (round pick), and this, and that and whoa, whoa, whoa.”
Those discussions began with the Sabres asking for the No. 3 pick, something Bergevin said he wasn’t even willing to entertain as a starting point.
“I said no way I’m doing that,” Bergevin said. “Then Poehling’s name came and, again, it’s tempting, but no.
Saying yes might have solidified his position as the team’s general manager, and many other GMs in Bergevin’s shoes probably would have said yes in an instant.
But Bergevin said no. And that says a lot.
This was in fact the second time Poehling could have gotten Bergevin some immediate help, and both times he took a pass. The first came at the 2017 draft, as Poehling was falling down the board.
]“Three picks before our pick that year, Minnesota called me. They made me an offer for that pick. It was tempting, but I said no,” Bergevin said. “Then after the pick, Chuck Fletcher came to me and he goes, ‘That was our guy.’ Trust me, it was tempting to trade the pick because it would help us right away, but I said no, if Poehling’s there we’re taking Poehling.
"What happened last year, we didn’t think it was going to go that way, and it did. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. With that group of players that we had, we didn’t get it done. ]So changing the fourth line players is not going to make a difference. So there were guys that I figured I need to change, because with that group we didn’t get it done. So that’s when I decided on Max and Chucky, and I replaced them with what I did.
SUR LE 1ier Juillet:
“Tavares is a different level. He’s a No. 1 centre, you could build around him, he’s still pretty young. These guys happen once every 10 years that they become available, so it’s part of my job to go after them, even though I kind of knew it was not going to happen. But I have to try,” Bergevin said. “Stastny was a guy who short-term, I’m always thinking short-term, so I didn’t know where KK (Kotkaniemi) was going to be, I know Poehling’s going to turn pro, but still young, so on the short-term (Stastny) will just patch a hole while these guys (develop).
“He was not changing the plan. You need to give those minutes to somebody who can help the wingers and you’re still in a market where you’re trying to win and trying to bring your guys into a winning environment. But again, I knew right away he wasn’t going to come so I immediately backed off. I didn’t chase somebody.
At the time we wanted to put Jo on the wing,” Bergevin said. “We knew Max had played centre, and what are my options? You talked about Stastny, that would have been good because I put him there and then I leave Max on the wing.”
Sur ALZNER:
“But the way the cap is going, the way our team is going, I don’t believe that contract is going to hurt us to the point I’m going to have to sacrifice a young kid,” Bergevin said.
Still, a lesson was learned there, one Bergevin was readily willing to admit.
“You have to look at the player’s environment,” he said. “First of all, when that happened you have to understand what we were thinking. There was an expansion draft. We already lost Emelin, I traded Beaulieu, so my expectation was Karl was probably a guy that could eat 20 minutes. I knew he would never run numbers; he was going to play a good, solid game, move the puck quickly, block shots, be reliable. But he didn’t do that. He came in with the old mentality of the Washington man on man and he couldn’t get off that, so it was always create a battle, create a battle. He was in an environment in Washington where he was protected … he was a decent defenceman there
“What happened here, the system changed, maybe I gave him a contract where … but I know there were other teams talking to him. Maybe six months from now we’re having a different conversation where he gives us 20 minutes a night and he gets the job done. I hope that’s going to happen, I think he might get it done, but that’s up to him.”