By Dan Kramer, Senior Writer, All Habs Hockey Magazine

TORONTO, ON – The chatter among Hab fans started virtually as soon as the 2011-12 season came to a close, and got louder and louder as the summer months went on. Once the calendar turned to August, with most other priorities resolved, it had become perhaps the primary topic of conversation.

“Why isn’t P.K. signed yet?”
“What’s taking so long?”
“Will he hold out into the season?”
“Is he in the team’s future plans?”

With the lockout cancelling the first three-plus months of the NHL season, fans had a little longer than they ordinarily would to sit with these questions.  All along the process, the cooler heads have tried to calm the masses, wondering what the hurry or impatience was, believing that Marc Bergevin understood how important P.K. Subban was to the Montreal Canadiens and how the team couldn’t afford to not have him in the line-up.

Then something funny happened.  The NHL and NHLPA reached an agreement, leaving teams just days to assemble a training camp roster, and then not even a week after camps had opened their doors, the first games of the 2013 regular season were being played.  In all of that, one P.K. Subban was nowhere to be found.

For the first few days after the CBA deal was struck, we heard about meetings between Bergevin and Subban’s agent Don Meehan. But with no new contract put to paper, it got to a point where both sides seemed to – at least temporarily – move on, stepping away from the table. We’ve heard quotes from all three parties involved since then, stretching our vocabularies for new ways to say, “no progress” (and here I thought the lockout had maxed that out). We’ve heard some positives and negatives, most recently coming from P.K. himself as he indicated he wants to be paid “what he’s worth,” and that his side “doesn’t see eye-to-eye” with the Habs’ front office on the subject of his new deal, but they need to “work around it.” In a matter of days, the negotiation has gone from looking like it should logically reach a conclusion to a near-lockout-like stand-off.

If many agreed with Bergevin’s unwillingness to give in to Subban and Meehan’s demands at the outset, resisting signing a contract that may handicap the team later on, popular opinion may begin to sway. We’re not in the off-season any longer; we’re two games into a 48-game calendar and a team already short $7.3M on the salary cap due to the buyout of Scott Gomez is also being deprived of a top player or asset that is sitting on the sidelines.

So what’s a General Manager to do?  Certainly this needs to be Bergevin’s top priority at the moment as adding a player of Subban’s calibre without sacrificing any assets immediately and significantly upgrades the on-ice product.  A positive is that the new head honcho running the Canadiens is showing he won’t be bullied into making poor hockey moves by fan pressures, or else he’d have never let P.K. miss a day coming out of the work stoppage.  But on the downside, how has he not been able to find middle ground to get his young defender back on the ice?

Nobody knows what’s truly going on behind closed-door negotiations, and the numbers thrown around in the media are mere speculation at best.  We’ve heard from some that the Canadiens want a deal like the one Michael Del Zotto signed, short-term for under $3M per season, while also getting word that Subban’s clan may be seeking a Drew Doughty-like contract, being long-term at a massive $7M a year.

The right contract is at neither extreme, but likely somewhere in the middle.  Rare are young blueliners who can play in every situation, but there are a few around the league.  We can look at a Tyler Myers as a higher end example, he who signed a 7-year deal at a $5.5M cap hit coming right off his entry-level contract.  Now of course, Myers won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year during that first contract, thanks to a 48-point season (10 more than P.K. has ever put up). So we can take another example of Victor Hedman, whose second contract came in at a $4M cap hit over a 5-year term.  Hedman’s best offensive season was of 26 points.

Just split the difference between the two.  Six years, $4.75M per season.  Agreeable to most.  Simple, right?  Yet for some reason, the two sides haven’t gotten there.  Could it be something other than dollars and term holding it up then?

Bergevin has been pretty clear that he appreciates hard-working, character, grinder type players.  He wants guys who put the team first.  A winning team isn’t made up of just superstars, but is built of players of all types filling all the various roles – a philosophy he endorses whole-heartedly.  Does P.K.’s brash style and off-ice persona clash with the GM’s vision?  Maybe, but so long as a player isn’t disruptive, he should be judged primarily on what he brings come game time.  There once existed a feeling that a player had to be of special ilk to merit wearing the glorious CH crest with the winning history it represented, but hopefully Bergevin doesn’t romanticize his transactions quite as much as the media and fans.  It can be argued that it is this sort of thinking that cost the club Mikhail Grabovski, Mike Ribeiro, Sergei Kostitsyn, Mike Cammalleri and Maxim Lapierre in recent years alone, any of whom could have either been helping the team today, or at least have fetched more in a trade were management less rushed to rid the team of them because of questionable attitudes.  Were they additions by subtraction through cleaning up the dressing room and building a more positive environment?  You could make a case for that.  But hockey continues to be decided by who puts up the bigger number on the scoreboard, and not which players mouth off the least.  And in a competitive 30-team league, any club that believes its heritage is worth more than committing itself to a larger-than-life superstar is doomed to struggle.  There is only so much talent to go around.

But let’s have some faith that Bergevin is more reasonable and level-headed than this.  So where is the impasse now?  It is reasonable to think that Bergevin may see Subban – whether it be due to inconsistencies in his game, defensive shortcomings, or his off-ice antics – as a risky case, and he may want to get to know both the player and man a little better before committing to a lengthy and lucrative contract.  No doubt he has floated the idea of a 1- or 2-year deal to get his d-man back on the ice.  The problem?  That deal comes with a low price tag, and a player like Subban believes he’s earned more.  Subban plays a physical game, while also taking a beating as a shutdown blueliner.  When you bring such intensity, injuries are a risk, and thus he is protecting his interests by seeking a longer-term deal now while healthy.  Thus, neither side is truly to blame, and you have to wait for one or the other to make a necessary leap of faith.  It is likely this diverging of views that had pundits including TSN’s Bob McKenzie thinking this situation may ultimately be resolved through a trade at this point, a dénouement that many believed unthinkable not long ago.

My take remains that a contract gets hashed out.  While it’s a little much, I’d be ready to match the deal Myers got from the Sabres to keep Subban in Montreal long-term (yes, I’m saying I’d be willing to sign him to a 5-8 year deal at $5.5M per year).  It would be a failure on Bergevin’s part to leave an asset that can take a team to another level on the sidelines for long, and dealing him this early in his NHL career would only be a mistake.  Of course it would depend on the return, but getting fair value for a young and still-developing player is an extremely hard thing to do (see below for more evidence on this); comparables just don’t become available very often.  Most frequently prospects or young stars are traded from winning teams for more established veterans in a push for a Stanley Cup, but for a team that wants more guys just like P.K. Subban, any transaction is likely to return nine dimes on a dollar at best.

That said, he also can’t sit out all season.  He didn’t play competitive hockey this Fall, missed the week of camp, and now the first few games.  And the team expects him to jump right in, head-to-head against the opposition’s top line(s) on a nightly basis?  Unrealistic.  While I do believe it will be, the situation must be resolved before January comes to an end.  In the unlikely circumstance that neither side will flinch on their demands, a trade might become a considerable option.  The problem there is that it might not be so viable from the rest of the league’s perspective based on what Bergevin would need to get in return to not be robbed on his undoubtedly biggest decision to date.

I’ll close with a look at some teams with a need on the back end and what they might be able to offer to not have Bergevin hang up the phone. If nothing else, it should illustrate why Subban being dealt doesn’t seem to be a serious threat at this point, since it’s unlikely the Canadiens could command much more than the below, and the returns don’t bring more to the table than a signed Subban would. A matured P.K. is worth more than the packages below, but the Canadiens won’t get that fair value for him until he can be further developed.

COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS

To Columbus: P.K. Subban
To Montreal: Derick Brassard, David Savard

Would acquiring two local talents be enough to quell fan outrage over trading Subban? Savard is a rare Jackets’ pick that may not be a complete bust, though he has yet to fully establish himself. Brassard once wanted out, so you would think Columbus would consider him available.

DETROIT RED WINGS

To Detroit: P.K. Subban
To Montreal: Xavier Ouellet, Tomas Jurco or Gustav Nyquist, 2013 2nd round pick

No doubt Detroit needs to upgrade it’s blueline, and this might be the most realistic of the trade scenarios presented.  The Wings could afford to deal the younger and bigger Jurco or the more established Nyquist, and Montreal adds another blueline prospect to its pipeline.  Habs fans won’t be happy with this kind of return, but it’s probably all that could be expected, and an argument for why trading him is not a favourable proposition.

EDMONTON OILERS

To Edmonton: P.K. Subban, Jarred Tinordi, Louis Leblanc
To Montreal: Nail Yakupov

Yes, this trade proposal is ridiculous and will never happen.  No, the Oilers won’t part with Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, or Taylor Hall.  Frankly, Edmonton doesn’t have much that they’d be willing to trade and that would entice Montreal to move Subban, even if the Oil would love to add a quality young blueliner.

NEW YORK ISLANDERS

To New York: P.K. Subban, 2013 2nd round pick
To Montreal: Nino Niederreiter, Travis Hamonic

This asking price is high, but it’s the kind of return Bergevin needs to get if he’s moving P.K.  Two young and promising players who can step right into the line-up.  Niederreiter is big and frustrating to play against, but brings some similar off-ice issues to Subban.

PHILADELPHIA FLYERS

To Philadelphia: P.K. Subban
To Montreal: Jakub Voracek, Shayne Gostisbehere

Hard to see what Philadelphia has to offer up of fair value, but I’d imagine the package starts with Jakub Voracek – big, talented, and still young with time to develop his offensive game.