P.K. Subban, who emerged as one of the NHL’s best defensemen with the Montreal Canadiens before stints with the Nashville Predators and New Jersey Devils, retired Tuesday, ending a 13-year career.
Subban, 33, won the Norris Trophy as a 23-year-old with Montreal in 2013 and finished third in voting two other times. He played seven years for the Canadiens before a blockbuster trade sent him to the Predators in 2016. After three seasons in Nashville, he played the last three with the New Jersey Devils, recording five goals and 22 points in 77 games in 2021-22.
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Subban ends his career with 115 goals and 467 points in 834 games.
“I never looked at myself or ever felt I was ‘just a hockey player,'” Subban wrote in a social media post announcing his retirement. “I always looked at myself as a person who happened to play hockey. Having that perspective allowed me to enjoy every shift like it was my last, celebrate every goal with emotion, and play every game as if someone paid to watch me play who had never seen me play before.”
A Toronto native, Subban joined Montreal as a second-round draft pick in 2007. He had an immediate impact in his first full NHL season in 2010-11, recording 14 goals and 24 assists and making the league’s All-Rookie team.
His Norris Trophy campaign came two years later when Subban recorded 38 points in 42 games in a shortened season. In 2014, Subban became the highest-paid defenseman in the NHL, signing an eight-year, $72 million deal.
His time in Montreal, like much of his career, was complicated. He was the most electrifying player to wear a Canadiens uniform for a generation of fans, a player who brought people out of their seats, who provided some of the most memorable moments of the last 20 years of Canadiens history, if not more.
The main atrium at the Montreal Children’s Hospital is named after P.K. Subban because he committed to raising $10 million for the hospital. He said some outrageous things and, more often than not, backed them up on the ice, such as this gem following Game 6 of the Canadiens’ second-round series against the Boston Bruins in 2014.
But it was never that simple. Subban’s personality is one of his biggest selling points, it is a marketer’s dream and will surely allow him to have a very lucrative post-playing career in broadcasting or whatever he chooses to do. (In 2022, Subban joined ESPN as an analyst for the Stanley Cup playoffs.)
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But it became a problem in Montreal, Subban the brand vs. Subban the player. It was something he recognized very quickly after being traded to Nashville for Shea Weber in 2016, and something his teammate Brendan Gallagher made quite clear after a game against the Predators in 2018.
No, Subban’s time in Montreal can’t be neatly summed up in a few paragraphs, but one thing that can safely be said is he left a mark on a historic franchise. He was part of a young nucleus that looked to be on its way to competing for the Stanley Cup on a regular basis, something it came close to doing in 2014 only to have Carey Price knocked out of the Eastern Conference Finals in Game 1. But things quickly, and shockingly, went south.
Subban is not universally loved in Montreal, nor is he universally hated. But one thing he always managed to do was elicit a reaction, and that reaction was never neutral. That, perhaps, is what Subban will ultimately be remembered for in Montreal. Love him or hate him, he made you feel something.
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(Photo: Tom Horak / USA Today)
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