MONTREAL — One day after firing Marc Bergevin and installing Jeff Gorton as the new executive vice president of hockey operations of the Montreal Canadiens, Geoff Molson told us we’d understand in time.
That was Nov. 30, 2021, when most people gathered at that press conference were understandably skeptical about what the owner of the Canadiens was selling them — that managing the club’s hockey operations had become a job for two people.
In hiring Gorton, a unilingual anglophone, the prevailing perception was Molson was breaking with team convention of having the hockey boss be able to communicate with the fans in French. The thought was Gorton would run hockey ops and anyone who came in underneath him would essentially serve as his French-speaking puppet.
But if that perception wasn’t completely eliminated by the time Kent Hughes was introduced as the 18th GM in franchise history, in January of 2022, it quickly faded as the first moves of the rebuild were being executed by both Hughes and Gorton.
Molson told us we’d understand in time, and it didn’t take too long before we did.
Four years later, with Molson promoting Gorton to president of hockey ops and extending his and Hughes’ contract for five years beyond this one, the owner’s foresight must be commended.
He started with Gorton — the architect of the New York Rangers rebuild who cut his teeth with the Boston Bruins, rising from public relations intern all the way up to GM — and authorized him to hire Hughes, who built up a wealth of experience over two-plus decades as a prominent agent for clients as prolific as Patrice Bergeron. He had a vision of them complementing each other, dividing the labour, and harmonizing on the decisions, and he believed they’d rebuild everything that needed rebuilding.
“We want to establish new standards of excellence at the hockey operations level and improve the way we manage the team on the ice and off the ice,” Molson said upon hiring Gorton. “These new standards include several important organizational improvements, including being better at the draft, being better at player development, and better supporting our players so they can have success in our market.”
What’s happened since has been a completely linear progression through a process that rarely, if ever, progresses in linear fashion.
Gorton and Hughes were methodical, meticulous, and calculated. They weren’t making as big a bet as they appeared to be making when they hired Martin St. Louis.
Concurrently, they made obvious bets, beefing up analytics and using the information gathered to optimize their draft, trade and signing strategies. They also made massive investments in player development and equally large ones in fostering an environment where players could be themselves and have a better chance of tapping into their potential, and they cultivated and nurtured a culture of honesty and accountability that now permeates throughout the whole organization.
"If you're going to be direct and honest, and we value that piece and we feel it's the most important thing, I think it's got to go from top down," said St. Louis just prior to the Gorton and Hughes extensions being confirmed by the Canadiens. "You can't just skip levels just because of positions, and I think they've embodied that with the way they treat everybody — not just the players, the security people in the building, everybody. It's real, and it's easier to build a good culture when you have good people. I wouldn't have taken this job if I didn't think that Gorts and Kent are great people, so it's easier to move along and get there quicker when you have consistency in behaviour."
Predictability in behaviour is just as important.
For the players, who thrive on the predictability of their teammates on the ice, knowing how Gorton and Hughes will act and react has provided them optimal working conditions off the ice.
“They’ve been great,” said Kirby Dach, whom the pair of executives traded for in 2022. “Very personal, very easy to talk to. If you have anything going on, their doors are always open. I think they’re very fair, too. They’re not going to sugarcoat things and, as players, you respect that and you want to hear it and want to hear when you’re not doing the right things and when you are doing the right things. They’ve been great. They’ve managed to find a way to keep everyone happy all the time, and everyone around here really enjoys the culture that’s been built. It starts with them, and then Marty, and then the entire leadership group, and then the rest of the team as well.
“They’ve also made great moves.”
There were the early trades of what Hughes refers to as “the asset accumulation phase” of the rebuild, like the one that sent Ben Chiarot to the Florida Panthers for a prospect, a 2023 first-round pick and a 2022 fourth-round pick. And there were the more recent ones in the “team-building phase” for Alex Carrier, Zachary Bolduc and Noah Dobson.
In between, and as recently as Monday, there were also the shrewd contracts handed out to young, core members Cole Caufield, Kaiden Guhle, Juraj Slafkovsky and Lane Hutson.
Those last two were taken in the first draft Gorton and Hughes oversaw together — first and 62nd overall, respectively — and many more talented players have been added in subsequent drafts to give the Canadiens what experts consider to be one of the best and deepest prospect pools in hockey.
Pair all that with the team going from bottoming out to making the playoffs within three-and-a-half years of Gorton and Hughes signing on, and extending both men long-term was a no-brainer for Molson.
“I am very pleased that Jeff and Kent have committed to the Montreal Canadiens for an additional five years,” read the owner’s statement in the team’s press release. “Their commitment to building a world class organization has been unrelenting and will only get better as we progress in the years to come. I would like to thank Jeff and Kent for taking this team and organization to where it is today, full of talent, size and speed with a support structure that is second to none, an objective from day one. I look forward to many more years working with them.”
Before Molson officially started working with Gorton and Hughes, it was hard to envision how it would all go.
But Molson was right that we’d understand in time and, based on how it’s gone so far, he’s probably right about the bet he’s making on both men delivering a championship-worthy team in due time.
