Seravalli: With Gorton, Canadiens may flip traditional front office power structure
It’s fitting that a popular idiom we use today originated with a mid-12th century iteration in French, of all languages: “L’enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs.”
Today’s version: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
How else to describe owner Geoff Molson and the Montreal Canadiens’ handling of an inevitable transition of power? This weekend was an unmitigated mess – botched and bungled in just about every facet.
First, word leaked on Saturday night that the Habs received permission to talk to former New York Rangers GM Jeff Gorton. News of assistant GM Scott Mellanby’s resignation quickly followed, which reportedly upset and stunned GM Marc Bergevin.
Finally, almost 24 full hours after the news cycle started, le bleu blanc rouge‘s bloodletting was mercifully completed. Bergevin and other assistant GM Trevor Timmins were fired along with public relations executive Paul Wilson.
Oddly, that the Canadiens officially hired Gorton in the newly created position of executive vice president of hockey operations was not mentioned until halfway through the team’s press release.
Mentioned before that: “A process to recruit, as soon as possible, the team’s next General Manager is under way. While the next General Manager will bring significant hockey expertise to the organization, an additional criterion of that person’s role will be to communicate with fans in both French and English.”
The entire execution, including Bergevin’s subsequent farewell letter, was mismanaged – something decidedly off-brand for the franchise that typically conducts ceremony and pomp and circumstance better than any other in the NHL.
It left many more questions than answers, which Molson will attempt to account for in a Monday morning press conference.
But back to that road to hell: What if the plan Molson set in motion this weekend was actually exactly what the Canadiens needed, timing and announcements be damned?
The true answer won’t be known for five years or so. And by then, if Molson got it right, this weekend’s blunders will long since have been forgiven.
There are so many questions.
What if … the tradition-obsessed Canadiens are taking the non-traditional route and breaking free of the established norms both in the way their club has previously operated and how NHL front offices have typically been structured?
What if … this is a creative workaround to pacify a fan base and market that demands a Francophone GM?
Because up until this point, the NHL’s various presidents of hockey operations have been more figureheads than shot callers, the conduit between ownership and the front office who can also be the public face of the franchise to take bullets for the manager that is doing all of the day-to-day heavy lifting.
Gorton could undoubtedly fill that role. He is certainly presidential.
But what if … the Canadiens are flipping that model upside down?
Gorton, 53, could be the man at the controls with all of the traditional say and power of an NHL GM, while the subsequent Francophone who is actually hired with that title will gain valuable experience under him in a collaborative role where he is also the franchise’s voice and face en Français to hockey’s most rabid market.
It would be an unprecedented front office structure – but it would make sense on so many levels.
Gorton is known as a collaborator, a relationship builder among his staff. He’s spent his entire NHL career within the Original Six, now having checked off half on his resume by adding the Canadiens next to the Bruins and Rangers. His mentors are Harry Sinden and Glen Sather, two Hall of Fame builders, and Gorton knows how to build – as both a shrewd talent evaluator in the draft and in someone who knows how to find a finishing touch to a rebuild (Artemi Panarin) even if it means nabbing him a couple years ahead of time.
Those who know him say Gorton is one of the few in the game who could pull off this structure from a personality perspective.
Gorton could help bring along a Mathieu Darche or Danny Briere, two former Canadiens players who have gained front office experience elsewhere in Tampa Bay and Philadelphia. Could Roberto Luongo’s infectious personality be the perfect fit as the face of the franchise in the market? Gorton also had a front row seat in Boston for Martin Lapointe’s leadership capabilities, seeing what Lapointe did to mentor an 18-year-old Patrice Bergeron, and that could make Lapointe a very intriguing internal candidate.
To know Gorton is to know that GM hired would not merely be a figurehead, but a trusted counterpart. Most importantly, any one of those four candidates would satisfy the French-speaking requirement. To know how Montreal works, that’s a requirement that is a real thing. The last time the Habs had an English-only speaking head coach in 2012, hundreds of protesters gathered outside of Bell Centre.
Too often, that has meant the Canadiens have hired with a short deck.
In Gorton, the Canadiens went out and got the best executive available, who also happened to be an American and an anglophone. It’s been a long time since anyone has been able to type that sentence.
Maybe this weekend was a mess because Molson knew he needed to strike quickly. Anaheim and Chicago already had vacancies at GM, with both also reportedly considering president roles – to say nothing of the inevitable turnover in Vancouver.
Good intentions, and all that. We’ll see what kind of road this paves now for Les Glorieux.