Nobody ever said trading was easy in the NHL, especially not Marc Bergevin. However, some GMs manage them better than others and there was one particular trade which was a swing and a miss for the former general manager.

Montreal Canadiens fans are faithful, passionate and always ready to chat about hockey even in the dead of the Summer. Back in the Summer of 2017, fresh off an upsetting Summer for a part of the fandom at least, Marc Bergevin needed to find a number one center and he swung for the fences.

The Canadiens Needed Help at Center 

The former GM had "decided" (you play the cards you've been dealt) to build his team from the net out with Carey Price as his first building block and Shea Weber as the second. They were great players, but they weren't the players who were going to fill up the net daily. 

Although Weber did have some good offensive seasons, but those mainly happened in Nashville when he was in his prime. Both his production and health went downhill once he began playing in Montreal. He never surpassed 42 points north of the border.

With a team struggling to produce and generate chemistry on its various line, Bergevin just had to get someone to jump start its offense. They did have Brendan Gallagher but that was before he turned into a 30-goal scorer (for a couple of season). They had Alex Galchenyuk who was struggling to make an impact and showing he wasn't the center the organization had hoped he would become. Max Pacioretty and Thomas Plekanec were not getting any younger. 

Bergevin didn't know if Alexander Radulov and Andrei Markov would be back and they were big pieces of his roster on top of being fan favourites. The GM was feeling the pressure and thought he could use a young defender as a trade chip to help improve his attack.

One of the Worst Trades Made by the Canadiens

On June 15, 2017 exactly two weeks before the one-year anniversary of the Weber-Subban trade, Bergevin acquired Jonathan Drouin from the Tampa Bay Lighting in return for his first-round pick and ninth overall selection at the 2016 Draft; Mikhail Sergachev.

The left-shot defenseman had taken part in four games with the Canadiens before being sent back to his junior team the Windsor Spitfires to further develop. He was truly a great prospect and widely believed to be the one untradable asset the team had. 

In Tampa Bay, the relationship between team and player was strained, Jonathan Drouin wanted to dictate how he would be used and that wasn't the kind of behavior that sat right with general manager Steve Yzerman.

The Habs' general manager saw in Drouin the dynamic forward, the first line center that could make his attack take a big step forward. Furthermore, as an added bonus, he was from the province, spoke French and would instantly please those lamenting the lack of French-Canadiens on the team.

Bergevin was so convinced he had made a good deal that he immediately signed Drouin to a 6-year deal worth $33 million for an annual average value of $5.5 M per year. In the process, he leapfrogged captain Max Pacioretty to land a million ahead of his $4.5 M cap hit and was just behind the highest earning forward on the roster Tomas Plekanec. I'm not taking Radulov into account here since his contract was expiring on July 1, and he signed with Dallas for $6.250 million a couple of days later. 

Had Drouin worked out the way Bergevin hoped he would, becoming the team's first center and developing instant chemistry with his linemates, there wouldn't have been any issue, but he didn't. He couldn't establish himself as a center, let alone as a first line one. In his first season, he picked up 46 points in 77 games but finished the year with a minus-28 rating. 

He established a career mark the following year putting up 53 points in 81 games while teammate Max Domi gathered 72 points in 82 games. From then on though, things began to go downhill for Drouin. He had wrist injuries and other ailments which meant he hardly played in the next three years. When the Canadiens played the 2021 Stanley Cup final, they did so without him as he had taken an indefinite leave from the team because of mental health issues. 

In the last year of his contract, he played 58 games but was limited to 29 points. His performance throughout the six-year pact Bergevin had hastily signed him to ensured the Canadiens couldn't even trade him at the deadline and he left the team free as a bird after the 2021-2022 season. 

Meanwhile in Tampa Bay, Sergachev stayed in the NHL with the Bolts right out of training camp and put up 40 points as a rookie. While the six-foot-three blueliner never even came close to breaking Victor Hedman 85-point season, he still became a key cog in the well oiled machine that was the Lightning when it won two Stanley Cups in a row. How sweet it must have been for the defenseman to win his second Cup against the team who had traded him a few years ago.

I do wonder what Bergevin thought when he saw his former stud defense prospect win the Cup right under his nose while the player who he had acquired for him wasn't playing. Life is funny like that sometimes, it's almost as if it wanted to highlight how bad of a trade he had made. They do say hindsight is always 20/20 though...

Now, Drouin is playing alongside junior teammate Nathan MacKinnon in Colorado and performing much better, he even beat his most productive season away from Montreal and its attention. As for Sergachev, he has been traded to the Utah Hockey Club and he brings with him a wealth of experience and two Stanley Cup Rings.