from Jack Todd at the Montreal Gazette,

So what does newly minted GM Marc Bergevin do now? In this short-sprint season, 10 games without Subban could douse any playoff hopes the CH might entertain, when every game is the equivalent of two in a normal season.

Bergevin sensibly does not want to break the bank for a player who (in the organization’s view) has not quite proved himself. For reasons that have never been publicly clear, the club has always been a little down on Subban: It was that way with Pierre Gauthier, Jacques Demers and Randy Cunneyworth, it’s that way now with Bergevin and Michel Therrien, who only a short time ago was Subban’s most ferocious critic in the media.

Now, assuming that Subban signs at some point, the same guy who was ripping him on RDS is his coach, which could be part of the problem here. Technically, Subban isn’t a holdout, because he doesn’t have a contract. In truth, as a restricted free agent without other offers, the effect of his absence is the same as a holdout.

The one thing you know is that agent Donnie Meehan is not going to sell his client short. The amiable Meehan isn’t given to outrageous statements; in public, at least, he’s a quiet bulldog who will hang on until he has everything he can get — much as Donald Fehr did during the CBA negotiations.

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