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"About a year ago, we were having a debate about Michel Therrien, and one of the defences of him as a coach was that \"he created good team chemistry and deserved credit for that.\" I argued at that time that it wasn't the coach or players who created chemistry but rather winning that created chemistry. When your team wins, everyone feels like they're part of something and those who are unhappy tend to shut their mouths so as not to disrupt what's going on and appear like they're sour grapes. So my opinion at that time was that Therrien had little to do with team chemistry and that rather the chemistry could be attributed to Carey Price and what he had done to help the Habs win so frequently. I had argued that if you take the winning culture out, you take away the \"team chemistry\" as well and you see what players really think of their coach and their ice time and each other. \nSo fast forward... the team suffered its worst losing streak in over 80 years. We saw Plekanec complain about Subban, we saw a rift between Pacioretty and Subban, we saw guys that seemed to be well-liked by everyone like Weise and Eller get shipped out. We saw players moved up and down the line-up to no end. Basically, we saw chaos. And the sentiment seems to be coming out now that the Habs room wasn't as united as everyone said it was 8 months ago. \nIs team chemistry really that bad? No. Winning will fix that. But winning requires the players to be on the same page, and we didn't see that. Instead of seeing people try to heal the divide, we saw Therrien and Bergevin and Pacioretty trying to make it worse. Subban was out there praising Pacioretty and talking about how great a captain he was and how important he was to the team. Pacioretty was talking about how Subban was Subban and how he was larger than life and everyone put up with it. Not really a glowing appraisal. Therrien was busy blaming Subban for the team's mistakes, even though Subban was one of the few consistent players last year. So that HAS to lead you to ask where the problem is. Was the problem Subban or was the problem a coach and a captain who weren't willing to iron out the issues and who not only failed in their duty to unite the club but who actively did their best to create rifts in the dressing room. I absolutely blame both Therrien and Pacioretty for failing miserably at their jobs in this case. Pacioretty is a great goal-scorer on a bargain contract but I've grown tired of what he's done to this dressing room as captain. it was only once he became captain and used that power to side with the coach over his teammates that this team seemed to fall apart. To me, it's time to start looking at Pacioretty as a trade chip and get a player with that type of attitude out of the room. To me, it's players like he and not ones like Subban who are likely more of the problem. \n"
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