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Photo by John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette

But the fact that Bergevin tried desperately to snare Tavares and then Paul Stastny proves once and for all that he’s not in rebuild mode, either. So that is also not the plan. It’s true that in some ways the Habs look like they’re in rebuild position — given that a big chunk of their players are on the younger end of the spectrum — but the sad fact is that if they’re rebuilding, they’re rebuilding by accident, not by design.

The reality is you can’t be in a rebuild if you have two aging players — say hello to Carey Price and Shea Weber — who are eating up nearly $20 million of your salary cap.

At the end of the season, Molson said the team’s performance was unacceptable and that “we have a plan to fix it.” But what moves have been made to ensure that the performance will be more acceptable next season? Adding right-winger Joel Armia from the Winnipeg Jets? Really? It’s funny, but his wasn’t exactly the name on everyone’s lips during the Jets’ exciting playoff run.

Is it the addition of Max Domi that’s going to make everything right in Habs Nation? The young man who scored all of five times on goalies last season.

Is the plan to rid the team of any player who shows real skill? Maybe. P.K. Subban, Mikhail Sergachev, Andrei Markov, Alexander Radulov and Alex Galchenyuk are gone and it looks like goal-scorer Max Pacioretty will be the next one to be shown the door in none-too-subtle fashion by Bergevin.

By the way, why has it become the accepted wisdom that Patches simply has to go? What is up with that? The team just jettisoned one of the only players who can put the puck in the net with the Galchenyuk trade and now the GM seems intent on moving his captain as well. I am not a big Pacioretty fan. He’s a ghost in the playoffs, never goes near the corners or anywhere else where he might find a little physical resistance and he never was “captain” material. But why unload your most prolific goal-scorer?