Subban leans on Green for advice
Defensive prospect appreciates Green’s advice, including how to pass
It took all of one day for it to sink in — the Canucks are run by a new government.
In some pointed, refreshing real talk with media, on what was really the first day of training camp, Vancouver’s rookie head coach Travis Green revealed Jordan Subban passed the puck like an AHLer. Wait, what?
Subban is the offensively gifted prospect who the Canucks may or not believe in. Until this week, his perceived limitations were obvious. Some didn’t think he was big enough. Others didn’t think he was reliable enough defensively. Some thought both.
Now you can add passing to the list?
“NHL players pass the puck and it hits your stick and it sticks,” Green explained. “When AHL players pass the puck, not all of them but some, it wobbles. That is a little tiny thing to a lot of people, but it’s a big thing.”
You could say the same for Green’s comment.
For three years, former head coach Willie Desjardins positioned himself as a player’s coach in Vancouver and to that end would often be paralyzed when it came to critiquing his own team. Desjardins was aggressively protective of his players and it would seem like mollycoddling.
On that front, you can plan on a platform change from Desjardins’ “mama bear” syndrome. Tough? Maybe.
But Green is unflinchingly honest and it’s his honesty in particular that so many of his players respond to, even the ones some of us think he’s hardest on.
Take his relationship with Subban. It may be the most revealing of Green’s interpersonal skills with players.
Subban is an offensive talent who finished ninth among all AHL defencemen last year in primary points, both at evens and on the power play. This is, uh, pretty good, especially for a 21-year-old. Still, he was a healthy scratch and for long stretches not a regular on Green’s first power-play unit in Utica, N.Y.
Was there a rift? Conflict? Really, just the opposite. “He’s hard on me, but it doesn’t matter how much he yells at me because at the end of the day what he’s saying makes sense,” Subban said.
“I can be as mad as I want to be, but I realize if I do what he says, I’m going to be a better player. I know he does it because he sees I can be a good player.
“He pushes me to be the best player I can be. I want to help him win. He is a great coach.”
Subban spent much of his summer working out — he was deadlifting 450 pounds — and poring over video. He watched all playoff games again. He watched NHL defencemen. He watched Sidney Crosby. He watched himself. A lot.
“I’m a hard critic on myself. There were lots of times I made a mistake last year in a game when Baumer (assistant coach Nolan Baumgartner) and Green got on me,” Subban said. “In my head at the time, I wasn’t fully seeing it. But you watch video and I’m like ‘What the hell was I doing?’ ”
He even has videos of when he first got to the AHL in 2015. What did Subban look like then? “It looked like he had no intention of playing defence at all,” Subban joked.
That’s not how Subban plays now. It sure as heck wasn’t how he played in the Canucks’ scoreless training camp scrimmage Thursday. He didn’t give an inch, battling Bo Horvat to a draw a few times, both in front of the net and along the boards.
It was a good first step on a journey this month that Subban hopes will lead him to playing his first NHL regular-season game.
Believe it or not, there is a chance it happens this season, and if it does Subban will be thinking Green’s influence is a big reason why.
“He’s helped me so much, done so much for me,” Subban said.
“Without him and (Nolan) Baumgartner I honestly don’t know if I’d be as well rounded a player as I am.
“Travis is honest with me. I know if I’m ever unsure about something, like the way I’m playing, I can go to him and he’s going to give me an honest opinion. That’s what I like about him.”
And just maybe without Green, Subban wouldn’t be as good a passer as he is right now.
“I really worked on passing this summer, making flat passes,” Subban said. “I just made a little adjustment and it made a huge, huge difference.
“I was watching Crosby who is the best passer in the league and I was trying to pick up little things.”
But what about those who say Subban should already be an amazing passer because he has been a playmaker in the AHL?
“People say I scored 16 goals so I must have a bullet for a shot,” Subban said. “Well, I don’t. I have a pretty good shot. It’s not the world’s hardest shot.
“But I do know what I do well and I try to find a way to use those things.”
Maybe the Canucks will let him try to find a way to use those things in Vancouver this season — even for a game.