Subban staying put
If you’re an Edmonton Oilers fan, forget that chatter about wildcat defenceman P.K. Subban being available from the Montreal Canadiens. It’s not going to happen. True, he seems to be in the doghouse on a lot of nights for his on-ice behaviour (ill-timed penalties, some giveaways), but that’s just a sign of immaturity. He’s too good with the puck, and part of the plans going forward.
“I really like P.K.” said former Habs assistant coach Perry Pearn, who looked after the blue-liners and now scouts for the Canadiens.
“When he’s sharp, most of the stuff he does is positive. You see it with a lot of young defencemen around the league … (Tyler) Myers, (Michael) Del Zotto, the growing pains are fairly significant with these sort of players. In P.K.’S case, we came into the season with injuries, too (Andrei Markov, Chris Campoli) and there was no room to back him off. We had to play him too much. He had an injury (back) which set back his training, as well.”
Pearn sees Subban as a 45-point defenceman who can pound the puck from the point. That’s something the Oilers could certainly use more of. But trade him? He’s a wild colt, who just needs some taming. The Canadiens coaches have had a running dialogue on the bench with him; the TV cameras are always finding that. But that’s his personality; it’s not that they don’t like him.
“It’s because he’s hyperactive. You have to be talking to him, or he’d be jumping over the boards for somebody else on a change,” said Pearn. “He took a penalty in the playoffs last year against Boston at a fairly crucial time, but I was responsible for changing the defence. That was my fault. We’d lost (James) Wisniewski to an injury and were down to five defencemen. I wanted to put (Jaroslav) Spacek and (Hal) Gill on, but P.K. had played with Gill and jumped on. I had my hand on his back and so did Jaro, but we couldn’t stop him.”
In some ways, Subban is like Brent Burns with the San Jose Sharks. Burns does a ton of good things with the puck, but every now and then he forces the issue and is up the ice and gets caught. Opposing players chafe at some the stuff Subban does, but that’s who he is. He looks for attention, which annoys people. The fact is, he can play. Any time you trade a young defenceman you risk a big mistake. Ask the Habs if they’d like Ryan Mcdonagh back after they included him in a package to the New York Rangers to get Scott Gomez.
Dan Boyle had talent but was deemed too small when the Florida Panthers had him a dozen years ago, and moved him to the Tampa Bay Lightning for a fifthround draft pick. Has anybody ever heard of Martin Tuma (the selection) since then?