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In his time as GM, it wouldn’t be true to say Bergevin is a GM who is too afraid to make a ballsy move. Subban for Weber, Galchenyuk for Domi, signing Radulov - these are all risky (or stupid) to different degrees. But the one thing he’s always beaten around the bush about is rebuilding; about the possibility of not making the playoffs. Teams like the rangers and leafs have in the past made it clear, they have entered full rebuild mode. Most of us seem to think that’s what Montreal needs, however I always felt Bergevin wasn’t able to commit to one. With the Weber injury, could Bergevin have a gold plated excuse to use this year as a rebuild year? Sell off assets, acquire youth speed and picks (Armia trade was a good one imo) and then start competing hard in the fall of 2019? I will say I don’t want to follow the Oilers model, which includes no solid veteran presence to help the kids grow. I wouldn’t mind keeping Weber for a long time, same for Price. These are players who can teach our youth, and make them more confident on the ice. But really what I’m asking is about MB: Do you think Bergevin will continue to patch the team up and claw desperately into a playoff spot? Or do you think he now has that excuse to rebuild the team this year?

Filppula reportedly nixed a trade to the Habs on deadline day when he went to the Flyers a year or two ago. I’d say he had no interest in coming here.

What about this years trade deadline ? I actually don’t expect Weber or Price to be traded under MB, but a solid 30-40 games by some of our other players like Byron Shaw and Pacioretty could make them appealing to other teams

Price moves when he wants to be moved, to the team he wants to goto, regardless of return. That's what happens when a guy gets an NMC with most of the contract in bonuses.

The problem is that Weber himself would be the primary veteran asset we could move in return for pieces that could really propel the rebuild. Since he's been injured for a full year, he can't be traded; and he'll probably need to play healthy and at a high level for a while before he becomes trade bait. Shaw and Byron are injured as well. Neither would command a truly high-impact return anyway, but they can't be traded right now either. I know people fantasize about trading Price, but I personally don't see it happening.

Because they never would have got him? Assuming the KHL team would have let him out of his contract (despite having no logical reason to do so), Markov would have had to gone through entry waivers where any team could have claimed him for free. Someone would have claimed him and the Habs still wouldn't have had Markov (and Markov wouldn't have gotten his wish to return to Montreal so neither side would have been happy). It would have made zero sense for that to have happened. Conveniently, in his rush to post this to Twitter on Friday, the author of that tweet conveniently neglected all of this. If they want to work something out now and the KHL team is open to releasing him from the second year of his deal (a fact that is conveniently neglected in the article that went up yesterday), sure. There's no entry waivers at this point of the season so why not? Once the season starts though, it's no longer a feasible option (something that any somewhat-respectable hockey writer already should know). But hey, it makes for good click bait...

I know Markov is a LD and Weber is RD so it doesn't make sense positionally, but if Molson and Bergevin are looking for a feel-good story after learning that Weber won't be back til December, then getting Markov out of his KHL contract and onto the Habs for a season would definitely work on me. 1 year, $4 000 000, NTC. He gets to 1000+ games with the Habs, probably moves into the top 15 all-time in points, and if he wants a shot at a cup then he can pick a contender that wants some PP help in the playoffs. It's a much better ending to his career as a Habs than a contract dispute.

Kovar is a 28-year-old centre who has spent the last five years in the KHL. He was one of the top scorers in the league two years ago but struggled last season. Still, for a team looking to take a flyer on centre help, I wouldn't be shocked if the Habs were among the teams interested. Walsh and Bergevin certainly seem to work out a lot of contracts for international players too (Sekac, Jerabek, Moravcik, and Sklenicka are all fairly recent examples).

On deal #1, what are the Habs really accomplishing? Palat is a second line guy (and arguably overpaid) while Pageau is an overpaid third line C. Is that really what you want to trade Pacioretty for? Isn't the point of moving him to actually fill a hole? (That sentence factors in the following comment on the other part...) On deal #2, Ryan has extreme negative value around the league. No team wants to touch him with a ten-foot pole. That's why Ottawa has kicked around putting him in a Karlsson trade because they can't give him away otherwise. Vegas isn't going to willingly take that contract on and give up an impact young NHLer for the privilege to do so. The more accurate depiction of his value if a team is taking on the contract would be Ryan + top prospect + high draft pick for a no-name prospect. The fact they're willing to take a lesser return on an elite player in Karlsson to simply rid themselves of Ryan's contract should speak volumes as to just how bad his value is around the league. If Theodore is your desired target, I think it would make more sense to try to structure a deal around an extended Pacioretty for him and bypass taking on some bad long-term contracts. That's going to be more palatable for Vegas as well as they'd much rather have Pacioretty than Ryan. If you want to help facilitate the Karlsson deal, I'd try to target an expiring deal like Coburn or someone like Callahan who only has two years left and then get some future assets (picks/prospects) at the same time. You wouldn't even have to move Pacioretty to accomplish that so they could still move him to fill a long-term void.

I would love this. And for the love of God, why did the idiot say no mid season? He is a total moron, but geez.

I've said before...MB manages by personal ego. It's a major reason why the team is as wretched as it is.