fake interview with bob gainey

wimptown: so, mr. gainey, why didn't any of our UFAs come back?

fake bob gainey: they were veteran players who commanded higher salaries than their production warranted. frankly, i'd rather pay someone $5 million a year before their glory days, rather than after. in kovalev's case, way, way after. koivu had to go, so it doesn't matter what we Could have signed him for, it was best for the team for him not to be here. tanguay is a player who personally upset me, and i happen to be the GM. dandenault and bouillon won't find work elsewhere, why should they keep their jobs here? am i making sense?

all too much, mr. fake bob gainey. when you relieved carbo, were you concerned about your own job?

no, i was mad at the players and frustrated with the coaching style. i just really wanted to ring everyone's fucking neck, i was so mad. it was less a case of "carbo has to get out of there" and more "i need to be closer." it never could have worked if i appeared on the bench along side him, so i had to clear him out. but i really had to get on the ground and figure this one out at eye level, because at that time i still wasn't sure what was going to happen with the UFAs, and i really did think these guys were winners, and i really did think carbo had gotten them aligned, was successfully implementing a coaching plan.

six weeks earlier you had said your best decision was hiring guy carbonneau...

exactly. and even at that point in the season, i could see the team was slipping. so for things to get so bad, both on and especially off the ice, something was wrong. the players were the same as the year before, but they weren't performing as good or better. this is always a very bad sign.

was the hiring of carbo your best decision as GM?

up to that point, i think it was. amusing as it is, i now feel that replacing him and not resigning those players was my best decision.

let's start with steve begin. you traded him shortly after firing carbo.

yes, begin was a player who had begun to act with a sense of entitlement, and this affected his level of play considerably, but also his usefulness as a role-player within the team and organization. begin was spoiled, and wasn't going to return.

dandenault?

dandenault was another player who acted with arrogance, due like begin in part to his quebecois lineage but also having won the stanley cup with detroit a few times. he was a useful player during his stay here, but i have no reason to extend that stay at all. speaking french is in itself not a reason to play hockey for this team. and most late thirty-something defencemen can be replaced rather easily, as is the case with both bouillon and brisebois, replaced by younger, healthier players who have not yet peaked in their careers. we need pre-peak players.

kovalev is post-peak?

kovalev's departure from this team is a result of his personality and not his style of play, sadly. i continued to have faith in him as a hockey player, but could not afford to spend anytime on UFAday waiting for him to reach a phone. his personality got in the way of his career here but if there are any regrets they are on his side only, i assure you.

koivu never had a peak, he was all middle.

ha! true and not true. koivu was as much a mystery to me as kovalev, except koivu remained so over the years. he treated his status as captain diligently on the ice, and in the community, but really never did much for the team as a unit, an organism. it was very preppy, with koivu and the other prefects on one side and the young french canadians or the young americans or the young belarussians on the other side. koivu keeps acting like koivu, young players keep becoming cokeheads.

or let me put it another way, wimptown: if koivu wasn't captain when i was engaged as GM--but still acted the way he did as captain--then i wouldn't have resigned him. if he was a quiet contributor, fine, he can stay indeffinately. but snobs have to go. the problem was, he Was captain when i got here. i thought that with a significant upgrade in wingers and a more workhorse coach he would flourist, and CJ was hired 50% because i thought his style would suit koivu and open him up as a teamleader, but it just shut him down even more.

if he wasn't captain here, he couldn't stay. the media spotlight in montreal would never dim on saku koivu, regardless what his jersey said. i wish i could have ten saku koivus on the ice, but none in the dressing room. and i got one of my wishes.