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What's in store for the Canadiens in this drama-filled season?
P.K. Subban and the Montreal Canadiens have had a tough season. Norm Hall/Getty Images

What's in store for Canadiens in this drama-filled season?

It isn’t common to hear about dressing room disagreements and turmoil when a team is doing well. When a team is losing games and frustrations build, however — now that’s when the drama bubbles to the surface for everyone else to see.

The Montreal Canadiens are the most recent and most glaringly obvious example. Everything was hunky-dory when the Habs kicked off their 2015-16 campaign with a 9-0-0 line. A rapid fall down the standings has brought out some ugly scenery up in Montreal. Now the spotlight is shining on coach Michel Therrien outwardly blaming star player P.K. Subban for the Habs’ loss earlier this week to the Avalanche and a swirl of media speculation as to whether this fractured team will be more active at the upcoming trade deadline.

This is a team far beyond its breaking point. We wonder, with this blatantly obvious need for change, who could be packing their bags and leaving Montreal? And is any move a “solution” to salvaging even the slightest shred of this season?

There is the possibility that Montreal’s front office has been ready to make changes long before the recent Therrien-Subban debacle. ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun brings up that perhaps Habs’ GM Marc Bergevin had a head’s up that there was a problem with his team, even before the Canadiens lost 23 of their past 31 games:

“If there's any silver lining to having the world's best goalie out for most of the season, it's this: Bergevin has looked under the hood and had a chance to observe the rest of his team for what it really is to some degree. Or at least see how much Carey Price covered up en route to winning the Hart Trophy as league MVP last season.”

Not a bad point, thinking that maybe Price’s success took the focus off some underlying problems — the fact that Therrien might have lost the locker room a while ago and that there has been a call for change for some time now — not to forget that there has been talk for some time that Subban and Montreal captain Max Pacioretty aren't always on the same page. The Canadiens wouldn’t be the only team in history whose in-house problems surfaced once the team started playing poorly. (The San Jose Sharks, for example, had the rep for being “that team” all of last season.) And Ken Campbell of The Hockey News reminded readers in a piece this week that Therrien has a history of trying to simmer Subban’s fire:

“Subban and Therrien are not exactly Amos and Andy, never have been. Remember, it was Therrien and GM Marc Bergevin who shut down Subban and Carey Price on their post game ‘triple low-five’ celebrations a few years back. I said at the time that it did nothing but suck the passion and personality out of their two best players. And by calling out Subban, Therrien risks taking that edge out of Subban’s game. Either that, or the situation will deteriorate to the point where one of them will have to go…”

So just how active will the Habs be in making immediate changes to the team?

They are already expected to be active at the upcoming trade deadline, although whether there is anything behind Friday’s reports that the team is “gauging the market” for Subban is still up in the air.

It’s also a wonder, particularly after Wednesday’s tirade, how safe Therrien’s job is. He has been pretty widely criticized for throwing Subban under the bus, which only became worse after the loss to Colorado. Allan Muir of SI.com summarizes:

“After the game the hashtag #FireTherrien was trending across Canada and you have to wonder if that moment is coming. Dismissing him at this point would do nothing to salvage this season—six points and four teams removed from a wild card spot, the Canadiens are all but finished. But it might help preserve the team’s relationship with its marquee player.”

Changes are definitely afoot. It’s just a matter now of seeing what those changes are and how much longer the drama will play out for the rest of the season.

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