Player Study: PK Subban

I’ve been waiting to do this one for a while now. This player is hands down my favourite player in the league, even if he leaves the Habs, he will still be #1 on my list. Today we study the energetic, soon-to-be superstar coming off his rookie year, PK Subban.

I’ve liked Subban ever since I watched him in the 2008 World Junior Championship. With the way he skates with such power and with his energetic playing style, it’s hard not to notice him. He helped Canada to achieve back to back gold medal finishes (2008 and 2009).

Though, not everyone is as big a fan as I. Subban’s gritty playing style and outgoing demeanor got under the skin of some of his opponents, and the biggest offender was veteran, Mike Richards. To paraphrase what he said: “A rookie shouldn’t be playing like that, you have to earn respect in this league.” Let me pause to laugh at Richards (HA!) He’s just angry that he let himself react the antics of a player 4 years younger than he.

Sometimes, Subban’s cockiness doesn’t always work to his advantage and on occasion gets him into trouble. A few times Subban has tried to do it all himself and ended up coughing up the puck and handing the opposing team very quality scoring chances. At 6,0″ he is not exactly a towering giant, but still, don’t dare come through the neutral zone with your head down or else this will happen Subban on Marchand definitely an unorthodox way to deliver a hit… but still effective (the fact that it was on Marchand made it much sweeter (more sweet?))

Along with bone crushing hits, Subban has the skating ability to (as Steven said) “go end to end while your team picks their nose. He has tremendous skating ability and can outrace most oncoming forecheckers and still go to Japan, eat a sandwhich, play some golf, walk back to get to the puck first.” But in all seriousness, his skating ability is absolutely fabulous and so fun to watch.

To round-out the trifecta of talent, PK Subban also has a blistering slap shot, which makes him very valuable on the power play. This is where he scored 11 of his 16 goals last season (regular season and playoffs). If you want to see exactly what I’m talking about, here is a playlist of all the goals he has scored in the NHL.

Subban is currently serving the third year of his 3-year entry level contract, which means after this season, he will be a free agent and will need to be resigned. I see no reason why PK wouldn’t resign (I’d be crushed if he didn’t) so the only questions now are, How much? How long? I’d be satisfied with 5+ years at $4.5M-$ 6M/year. Is that unreasonable?

My Dad wanted me to write about if “Subban is vilified because he’s black.” I see no evidence of that being true. Though, at some times the media does make a fuss about what he does, but still I don’t see any logical way that Subban can be justified as a dirty player, gritty for sure, but by no means dirty. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions by saying that anyone of this belief is rascist, but if you classify Subban as a dirty player, You’re dead wrong. When it comes to dirty players, there is no way he even comes close to the  likes of Sean Avery, Steve Downie or Dan Carcillo.

To conclude, I’ll share a story displaying PK Subban’s wonderful charisma, yet another reason why he’s my favourite player.

Recently, my close friend was attending a hockey camp in Toronto, when one day PK Subban made a surprise appearance at this camp. At one point, he was answering some questions. One of the questions was: “What do you think helped you the most in becoming successful in the NHL?” where he responded with “At a very young age I was diagnosed with what doctors call “Dangleitis””.

Of course, I wasn’t there so those weren’t exact quotes, but that was the gist of what was said.

There is no doubt in my mind that PK Subban will be a superstar in this league, Montreal’s defense is in good hands.

Today my question is ” At what price and term would you like to see Subban’s contract at next year?(with or without the Habs).

Leave me a comment or tweet me what you think. @JScaresHabs.

and P.S. I want to wish Habs legend Jean Beliveau a very happy 80th birthday. Happy Birthday Jean!