Brady Tkachuk doesn’t think Marc Bergevin should be criticized for ignoring him

Michaël Petit
Brady Tkachuk doesn’t think Marc Bergevin should be criticized for ignoring him
Credit: Getty Images

Like every general manager, Marc Bergevin has had his ups and downs with the Montreal Canadiens.

Among his good moves, we can obviously think of the excellent contract granted to Nick Suzuki. However, many fans are still angry that he chose Jesperi Kotkaniemi third overall in 2018 over Brady Tkachuk.

It's easy to judge a draft pick after the fact when you see the progression of players, but many fans and experts would still have chosen Tkachuk over KK at the time.

During the pre-game between the Canadiens and the Ottawa Senators, TVA Sports featured an interview with Brady Tkachuk by Felix Seguin.

At the end of the interview, Seguin asked Tkachuk if he knew that fans have been very critical of Bergevin for passing over him in the 2018 draft.

To this, Tkachuk replied that he didn't know, but that fans are wasting their time criticizing him because it wasn't meant to be.

Still, Tkachuk is right. In a draft, there are always going to be misses and steals: clubs can't always succeed.

What's more, apart from the first two (Rasmus Dahlin and Andrei Svechnikov), things could go either way after that.

We should also add that if the Habs didn't draft Tkachuk, they probably wouldn't have been able to choose the same players in subsequent years (Cole Caufield in 2019, Kaiden Guhle in 2020, Juraj Slafkovsky in 2021, etc.).

Also, it's worth remembering that at the time, while a power winger would have been welcome, the glaring need was at center, and Kotkaniemi was the top prospect in 2018.

The fact remains that Tkachuk is by far the better player of the two.

Félix Séguin also asked the Senators captain if he really thought the Habs would pick him when the time came to make the selection.

Here's his answer:

“I had no particular expectations. I didn't have a preference, because I was naive. I didn't think about playing for Montreal or not.” – Brady Tkachuk

At 18, you don't expect too much when you have a very good chance of being drafted in the top-5. What you're most excited about is which team will pick you.

One thing's for sure: the Habs would probably look a lot different if Tkachuk had been chosen over Kotkaniemi.


Overtime

– It'll be interesting to see where they end up.

– I can't wait to see what happens with this one.

– Now that's a major league shot.

– WOW.

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