Good morning! I decided not to stay up for the Leafs game last night (but someone will post the recap and score below) so the top story I have for you this morning comes out of Quebec. Last night, the Montreal Canadiens fired GM Marc Bergevin alongwith executives Trevor Timmins and Paul Wilson.

The search is on as owner Geoff Molson has assured the public that their new GM will be able to “speak to fans in both french and english.” That said, they have hired English-speaking (*gasp!) American (*gasp!*) Jeff Gorton to be VP of hockey operations and basically run the operation.

This news comes on the back of Scott Mellanby quitting as assistant GM after not getting the president of hockey ops job.

So right now the Habs are looking for a french figure-head to speak french and do GM things.

And now to bring back an old meme from earlier in the year. Bergevin leaves with the Habs 29th in the league and with the 18th best record over his 10 years in charge with the team.

Let’s call these Habs of the past decade what they are. A perpetually mediocre team that traded the good talent they had and used a couple hot months from Carey Price to overachieve a couple times. Instead of building a team around a really great goalie for his prime, Bergevin put lead in his pads and blamed everyone else for their shortcomings. Cette équipe n’est pas la meilleure, et malheureusement ils ont aussi Mailloux.

Various Leafs and Branches

The Leafs destroyed the Ducks, winning 5-1!

Maple Leafs needed 1 good period to beat the Ducks

Matt Murray cleared waivers yesterday, but hasn’t been sent to the AHL yet. Also on waivers from the Senators was Logan Shaw. Also on waivers is Evander Kane.

There’s a lot going on with the Kane saga (isn’t there always). If he gets claimed on waivers, great, he can go play there and the Sharks  — who clearly don’t want him around the team — are rid of him. I see there being a 0% chance of that happening. The next most likely thing is Kane clears waivers, gets sent to the AHL Barracuda and doesn’t report. In that scenario, he would not get paid and his creditors would be quite furious. However, according to his agent, Dan Milstein, Kane will report to the AHL and “try to build his way back to the NHL.”

As for a trade, the Sharks are willing to retain half the cap hit and salary, but even then, according to Emily Kaplan, getting a trade to happen would be really difficult. I wouldn’t be surprised if he spends the year in the AHL, we get some talk during the trade deadline, but he’s ultimately out of San Jose in the summer when teams have more money to burn.

From The Branches