from Brendan Kelly Kelly of the Montreal Gazette,

The way hockey talk is going in Montreal, you’d think Les Boys had already won the Stanley Cup. This month, TVA Sports ran a piece with the headline: “Marc Bergevin hit a home run.” The headline was a quote from Canadiens goalie coach Stéphane Waite, who was talking about his boss’s decision to trade for Allen to serve as Carey Price’s backup.

First, only in Habs circles would someone describe the hiring of a backup goalie, who’d lost his job to a relatively inexperienced Jordan Binnington, as a home run. It’s a good move to finally snare an NHL-quality No. 2 netminder to help out Price but, rather than go all hyperbolic on us, one might rather ask why it took Bergevin eight years to figure out Price merits a decent backup.

But we keep hearing people talking about Bergevin’s home run of an off-season. The Athletic recently did a survey of Habs fans and their enthusiasm was off the charts. In spring, with our heroes in 24th place in Gary Bettman’s league, only 37.8 per cent of respondents felt the 2020-21 Canadiens would be a playoff team. Fast forward eight months and now 95.3 per cent of fans believe this season’s team will make the playoffs. Even more astonishing is a good chunk of those surveyed believe this team could win a Stanley Cup during the next five years, something few believed in spring.

I say give the Cup to the Habs marketing department. I mean did I forget to pick up the paper the day Bergevin signed Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and David Pastrnak?

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