The Montreal Canadiens bottomed out in the 2011-12 season. A year earlier. they pushed the the eventual Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins to overtime in Game 7 of their opening round series. One season later they were nowhere near the postseason.
The team hired Marc Bergevin to replace Pierre Gauthier to run the team. Bergevin had served in several roles with the Chicago Blackhawks for the previous seven seasons, and the team had plenty of success in that time. Most notably, they had won a Stanley Cup in 2010 with Bergevin as the team’s assistant general manager.
It became clear early on that Bergevin was not going to tear things down by sending out established players for draft picks, nor was he going to go all-in right away either.