from Brendan Kelly of the Montreal Gazette,

It appears the marriage between Pacioretty and the Canadiens is over. There’s bad blood here, something that was underlined on the draft weekend when Pacioretty fired his agent Pat Brisson and signed with Allan Walsh.

Many have suggested that Pacioretty ditched Brisson because he felt the Los Angeles-based agent was too close to Bergevin and wasn’t properly representing Pacioretty’s interests. Brisson and Bergevin played minor-league hockey together as teenagers in Montreal and it’s interesting to note that Brisson reps a slew of players connected to the Canadiens, including Andrew Shaw, Mike Reilly, Nikita Sherbak, new Hab Max Domi and the fellow Bergevin traded to Arizona for Domi, Alex Galchenyuk.

The problem for Bergevin is he’s been trying to trade Pacioretty for months and so far it hasn’t worked. So the other 30 general managers know Bergevin is desperate because it’s almost unimaginable that the Habs captain will start the year with Montreal. The other GMs can offer less than market value for him, knowing full well that Bergevin doesn’t have much room to manoeuvre.

What I’m hearing from very reliable sources is that Canadiens management has been unhappy with Pacioretty for a while.

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