It’s been a year since The Athletic put down some roots in Montreal, a year of learning, a year of challenges, but most of all a year of growth. Those roots are turning into a tree.

The one-year anniversary of our little operation in this city couldn’t really be more appropriate in the sense that current events are intricately tied to our year of existence.

The very first story we ran was a 1-on-1 interview I did with Max Pacioretty in a downtown juice bar, an interview that ran on Sept. 11, 2017, the day of the Canadiens’ season-opening golf tournament, a day of hope that the team could build on its first-place finish in the Atlantic Division one season prior. What Pacioretty spoke about in the first of a two-part interview was how much he learned to appreciate what Montreal has to offer, how much he enjoyed his first summer in the city with his family, how happy he was to move from the South Shore to Westmount so he could immerse himself and his family in the city.

The headline of that story was, “Max Pacioretty had a summer love affair with Montreal.”

Less than a year later, we ran a story with the following headline, “Max Pacioretty’s golf tournament was a grand stage for an ongoing farce.”

Less than two weeks after that, Pacioretty was gone, traded to the Vegas Golden Knights for Tomas Tatar, Nick Suzuki and a second round draft pick in 2019. Captain. Perennial scoring leader. Lover of Montreal. Gone.

In the interim, The Athletic covered the saga from beginning to end, from the night in Florida when news first broke the Canadiens were trying to trade him, to his impassioned plea to stay in Montreal the night of the trade deadline, to this bizarre summer to what his departure means for the veterans he left behind.

Had his departure been sudden, it would have come as a shock. But it was the very opposite of sudden. It was a long, drawn out soap opera that removed some of the shine from his 10 years in a Canadiens uniform. He leaves 18th on the all-time Canadiens list in goals with 226. He had a chance of climbing into the top-10 this season if he scored 33 goals, which would have allowed him to pass players like Toe Blake, Bob Gainey, Mats Naslund, Dickie Moore and Howie Morenz, among others. It would have meant a lot to him, because Pacioretty grew to revere and respect the history of the jersey he wore with so much pride, until circumstances made it so he couldn’t wear that jersey any longer.

Those circumstances remain in dispute, and with both sides digging in their heels we might never know the real truth. One thing Pacioretty has displayed over his time in Montreal is his inability to lie in a convincing way. Whenever he’s tried, which isn’t often, he tends to look down and mumble. It’s a horrible tell. The night of the trade deadline I asked Pacioretty if he had asked to be traded. He looked me directly in the eyes and emphatically said he had not. Does that mean he’s telling the truth? Not necessarily. But based on his history as a horrible liar, I would tend to believe him.

The thing is, I don’t think Marc Bergevin and Geoff Molson are lying either. Something happened, a discussion on Pacioretty’s future in Montreal had to have taken place where the team was given what seems to be a clear impression that he wanted out. We’ll probably never know, much like we’ll never know the real story behind P.K. Subban or Alex Galchenyuk’s departure. The one thing Subban, Galchenyuk and Pacioretty have in common, however, is that each of them was at one point publicly at odds with Bergevin. And Bergevin is the only one who is still here.

Pacioretty’s season was so intricately tied to The Athletic’s first year in Montreal that his departure even delayed the publishing of this story, because it altered this story a great deal. But now that he’s gone, it’s a good time to tell you what to expect from us in year two, which begins today.

As I mentioned, we learned a lot over our first season, and the most important thing we learned is what you, our subscribers, our life blood, want. You want deeper stories. Insight. Analysis. You want to learn about the players who play for your team, what makes them tick, their desires, fears, dreams.

Launching a subscription sports media business when the primary sports team we cover was out of playoff contention one month into the season also taught us that the games, under these circumstances, are less important. We will never ignore the games but our coverage will be less centred on them and more focused on those deeper stories.

So that means changes to our coverage to allow us to have that focus. That means the postgame Three Things We Learned column will be a thing of the past, allowing us to focus our energy on watching the game and making sense of what it means in a grander sense. That means we will cover games but might not write on every single one we cover, allowing us to focus on reporting on a bigger story we are working on.

In more simple terms, the quantity of stories will be making way, we hope, for increased quality in what we produce. That doesn’t mean we won’t be following the Canadiens every step of the way, on the contrary. It means we will have more time to report on the stories that matter, that resonate with you, that rise above the day to day of reporting line combinations and mundane, postgame quotes.

We’ve also decided in year two to concentrate our resources on covering the Canadiens. The Impact, the Alouettes and the Canadiennes are important parts of the sports landscape in Montreal that deserve proper coverage, and while we tried to cover them in year one, I don’t feel we did it properly. We are not yet at the stage where we can meet the high standards we demand of our coverage here at The Athletic, so rather than do it improperly, we are going to wait until we have the resources to do it right. We’ll get there.

When I wrote my initial welcome letter to Montreal 13 months ago, I made a promise that we would provide content that would challenge you on an intellectual level. While I feel we held true to that promise in our first year, I still feel we can do better.

That’s what we intend to do.

If you want in and haven’t pulled the trigger yet, you can get a 40 percent discount on your first year’s subscription here.

A reminder that we are holding a subscriber event on Sept. 25 at the 1909 Tavern at the Bell Centre with our writers and special guest Pierre LeBrun. The event is free to attend for subscribers and guests, you can RSVP here.

(Top photo: Max Pacioretty sitting in that juice bar one year ago)