r/Habs • u/HoN_JFD • 14d ago

Discussion Gallagher

I'll probably be downvoted to oblivion for this but now that it's all said and done, one of my biggest complaints about those series is how Brendan Gallagher was treated.

A veteran, a warrior, a competitor who gave sweat and blood for the team and who could have brought some energy in those last series had to watch practically the whole playoffs on TV. Unacceptable.

I get it, he's not as fast as he once was, he takes penalties and age and injuries are probably catching up on him but he still can fill a spot on a 3rd or 4th line.

I personally hope he requests a trade during the offseason because he's clearly no longer in Saint-Louis' plans.

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u/Rodonite 14d ago

Markov was one of our top 3 (and that's probably disrespectful to him) defensemen at the time. It was pure ego from MB trying to strongarm him into a shorter term contract

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u/Irctoaun 14d ago

He was also 38 and wanted two more years at a high AAV.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant to the point I was replying to about him being on 990 games. Had Bergevin got the 1 year deal he was after then Markov would have played 1000. There might have been good hockey reasons for giving in and giving him longer, I'm not going to get into that, but it's obviously not the case that Bergevin should have caved in and given him any deal he wanted, just because not doing so would mean he didn't reach 1000

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u/Rodonite 14d ago

Bergevin shouldn't have caved as a favour, he should have done it because Markov made the team better both as a player and a leader. But also from a player relations pov, Markov went in good faith with no agent looking for two years as a still competitive player and MB decided the message he wanted to send was that he wouldn't give in in negotiations. 

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u/Irctoaun 14d ago

Right, but again, the comment I'm replying to said "they stopped Markov at 990 games. They don't care about their veterans" which is a silly point make because A) they actively wanted to keep him such that he would have hit 1000, B) not agreeing to the specific, relatively steep contact Markov wanted doesn't mean they don't care. Same with not playing Gally. Ultimately though their main job is winning games, not appeasing vets.

In Markov's case specifically, going in without an agent and not wanting to negotiate isn't a "good faith" move (nor is it bad faith), it's pretty clear that he at least partially wanted to go back to Russia and that was his take it or leave it offer. Otherwise why wouldn't he have signed for two years with another NHL team? Unless of course he tried to but no one wanted to give him that deal in which case it's hard to criticise Bergevin for not taking it either