As a matter of business, GMs would be negligent if they didn’t put out occasional feelers on guys largely considered untradeable. And Marc Bergevin would be remiss, too, if he didn’t maintain a sense of what exactly he might be able to get for his 26-year-old superstar defenseman. The market-gauging could very well be happening—and mean absolutely nothing.

But then there’s the Canadiens’ season-long meltdown, and reports of locker-room strife, and a very clear rift between Subban and coach Michel Therrien.

Then there’s his contract. Subban is signed through 2022, with an AAV (and annual cap hit) of $9 million. But the way it’s structured, his salary is about to jump from $7 million this year to $11 million each of the next two years, and $10 million the two years after that. More importantly, Subban has a no-movement clause that doesn’t kick in until July 1 of this year. Again, not that I think the Habs are going to trade Subban, but if they are, they’d want to do it now.

Not that we should expect anyone in Montreal to react rationally to anything. Here’s a column referring to the lack of French Canadians in the lineup as “the final solution.”