Los Angeles Kings Hire Marc Bergevin

The whispers were correct. Marc Bergevin has landed with the Los Angeles Kings — perhaps sooner than originally expected.

On Sunday, the Kings announced that they’d hired the former Montreal Canadiens general manager “in a consulting capacity” to serve as a senior advisor to general manager Rob Blake.

The hiring comes exactly six weeks after Bergevin was fired by the Canadiens, on Nov. 28.

“I’ve enjoyed my time away, but I’m excited to join the L.A. Kings and become an active part of helping the team reach its objectives,” Bergevin said in the press release. “I have a great amount of respect for (team president) Luc (Robitaille), Rob, and the staff they have in place and it’s an honor to provide my input to this highly regarded group.”

In mid-October, Larry Brooks of The New York Post linked Bergevin to Robitaille.

“Whispered into our ears by a savvy individual with keen insight into the dynamics of the league (and that description eliminates scads of suspects, no?), we’ve been advised not to discount the possibility that Marc Bergevin, entering the final year of his contract as general manager in Montreal, just might wind up in Los Angeles next season working with Kings president Luc Robitaille,” he wrote.

Eyebrows had already been raised because Bergevin had not signed a contract extension in Montreal after guiding the Canadiens on a surprise trip to the Stanley Cup Final last spring. Was the stalemate about money, or power? Or was the 56-year-old looking for a change of scenery after nearly a decade under the intense media spotlight in Montreal, where every detail around the Canadiens is prodded and dissected?

An Inauspicious Ending

In the months before his firing, Bergevin’s feet were held to the fire for using Montreal’s first-round draft pick in July to select Logan Mailloux, a Canadian defenseman who had asked not to be drafted after reports came to light that he had paid a fine for an offense of a sexual nature while playing in Sweden during the 2020-21 season.

A month later, Bergevin was roundly criticized for his handling of the Carolina Hurricanes’ offer sheet to Jesperi Kotkaniemi, which resulted in the third-overall pick from 2018 draft leaving the team.

Then, Montreal started the season with key veterans Shea Weber and Carey Price on the sidelines due to injuries — as well as mental health concerns, in Price’s case. The Canadiens opened with five straight losses, and were 6-15-2 when Bergevin was fired.

They’ve won just one game since — a 3-2 shootout win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Dec. 16, played in a fan-free Bell Centre. With a record of 7-23-4, they sit 31st in the NHL standings as of Sunday, one point ahead of the last-place Arizona Coyotes.

What’s The Connection?

The chatter in French-language media suggested that Bergevin would be relocating to California in order to join Robitaille and his best friend, Los Angeles-based Pat Brisson of CAA Sports, to form “one of the biggest trios of Quebecers in the world of professional sport,” as Jean-Francois Chaumont of French-language channel TVA Sports wrote in late October (via Google Translate).

Robitaille downplayed the idea at the time, asserting that Bergevin was still under contract to the Canadiens. But that didn’t stop him from praising his fellow Montrealer.

“Marc is a very good GM in the NHL, one of the best,” he told Chaumont (again, via Google Translate). “When you look at his transaction history, he did some really good things. He has good vision. He’s a talented manager and he knows everyone in the NHL. In my eyes, he is clearly among the top ten in his profession.”

What’s Bergevin’s Role?

Robitaille did not make a comment for Sunday’s announcement. Blake said “Marc brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to our hockey operations staff and will be a valuable addition to our group. We look forward to his contributions.”

And while the hiring comes sooner than may have been originally expected, it comes at a crucial moment for the Kings, who are targeting their first playoff appearance in four seasons and eying the March 21 trade deadline that’s now 10 weeks away.

Veterans Jonathan Quick, 35, Anze Kopitar, 34, and Drew Doughty, 30, were all key contributors to the Kings’ two Stanley Cup wins in 2012 and 2014, and are hungry for another opportunity to compete for a championship.

While they’ve been outside the postseason picture, the Kings have been aggressively building their prospect pool, which is now one of the deepest in the league. They have a healthy stockpile of tradeable assets if they’re looking to bring in some help to push for a playoff spot.

“We want to improve our team,” Blake told Dennis Bernstein and John Hoven on ‘Kings of the Podcast’ earlier this week, as he noted that the trade deadline could provide an opportunity to do so.

“I fully anticipate moves going forward will have impacts on the roster to make us better,” he said.

Bergevin’s history as an aggressive dealmaker could put him in the thick of the Kings’ pre-deadline planning. And while he’s coming in, at this point, to work with Blake, it’s another interesting wrinkle that the current general manager is in the last year of his own contract, with no extension yet in place.

Days before Bergevin’s hiring, Blake said that’s not an issue.

“Luc and I have a really good relationship. It goes back to the days we played as teammates,” he told Bernstein and Hoven. “We’ve been very up front that, listen, let’s let this year go, we’ll figure things out at the end of the year, make sure we’re going in the right direction, continue pushing on what we want to do and what we want to accomplish. We’ll tackle that. There’s lots of time. We have enough other things going around here daily that we can take care of that later.”

That being said, Bergevin’s new position isn’t without precedent. Before he was hired as Pittsburgh’s general manager last season, Ron Hextall worked for the Kings as a senior advisor during 2019-20 and early part of the 2020-21 season, following his firing by the Philadelphia Flyers.

After Bergevin was dismissed in Montreal, Jeff Gorton was hired as the team’s new vice president of hockey operations. The Canadiens’ GM search remains ongoing.

And with the run-up to the trade deadline imminent, the Vancouver Canucks, Chicago Blackhawks and Anaheim Ducks are also currently operating without GMs. Jim Rutherford, the Canucks’ new president, is currently handling those duties for Vancouver, while interim GMs Kyle Davidson and Jeff Solomon have been given the reins in Chicago and Anaheim, respectively.