3 General Managers With a Lot to Prove This Off-Season

Every year, teams that are expected to compete for the Stanley cup wind up falling far short of expectations. When that happens, it's often the general manager who shoulders much of the blame. Today we will be looking at 3 general managers who have something to prove this off-season.

These are placed in no particular order.

Stan Bowman (Chicago Blackhawks)

Once argued to be a modern-day dynasty, the Blackhawks fell from grace quite heavily this season. The 2015 cup winners have much of their core intact from their winning years, with Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook, and all Crawford still on the team, but they fell all the way down to 25th in the league. It doesn't help most of that core are on the wrong side of 30, and Toews and Kane make a combined 21 million dollars between them. Bowman will have to decide if he wants to keep the team together or blow it all up. We'll likely see which route he'll go down on draft day in Dallas.

Marc Bergevin (Montreal Canadiens) 

After watching Bergevin completely bungle the 2017 off-season, I had little hope the Canadiens would maintain their pace from last season. From overpaying on the Care Price contract, gutting the better half of your defence, losing Radulov, and having the Drouin trade completely backfire on them, Bergevin has a lot to make up for come July. Despite the population of Quebec wanting Bergevin booted into the St. Lawrence river, owner Geoff Molson doubled down and expressed his faith in him. Everything will need to go right for Montreal if Bergevin wants to regain any sort of good reputation from his team's fan base. 

Peter Chiarelli (Edmonton Oilers) 

Oh boy... Chiarelli definitely has his work cut out for him this year. A team with a generational talent in Connor McDavid should not be missing the playoffs, especially not when he isn't even making 1 million dollars against the cap. But after bad contracts given to players Kris Russel and Milan Lucic, along with Cam Talbot being burnt out from last year, and here they are in 23rd place. McDavid is about to cost this team 12.5 million dollars for the next 8 years, and Chiarelli needs to find some wingers to play with him and a defensive core that can... well... play defence. Otherwise this team is going nowhere fast and McDavid's just going to leave for another team when his contract is up in 2553 (just kidding, but seriously...). 

Which GM do you think has the most to prove this off-season? Comment below.