Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports was interviewed on Sportsnet 590 The Fan the day after the trade. He mentioned the story of Subban blaming veteran equipment manager Pierre Gervais for his series of falling and causing goals at one point.
- The infamous Colorado screw up where Subban tries to carry the puck in, blows a tire, Avs counter attack, Pacioretty and De La Rose miss their defensive assignments and Colorado (Iginla) scores the winning goal with 2 minutes left in the game. Therrien singles PK out in the post game press conference.
- Two weeks later, he was caught flat footed by Dwight King in a game against the Kings. Subban has the puck, fell while standing on the spot, failed to simply swat the puck away, Dwight King goes on a breakaway and scored. Therrien defended PK on this one during his post game press conference.
- The very next game against the Jets, Subban takes the pass from his goalie, he begins one of the classic Subban-from-his-own-zone-rushes, Mark Scheifele is pressing on the forecheck. Subban pulls a spin-o-rama to get passed the forechecker, he gets pressure again and attempts another spin-o-rama in his own zone, this time he slips, coughs up the puck, Scheifele goes on a breakaway and scores the second of his three goals that night.
During this game, Renaud Lavoie was between the benches as a commentator for TVA Sports. After his third slip-up in two weeks that directly caused goals, Subban was seen on the bench blaming equipment manager for not sharpening his skates good enough (game cameras showed it when they returned from commercial). The veteran equipment manager of over 1,000 games (was part of Team Canada's squad in Sochi), looked at the skates and responded that the blades looked fine. PK didn't want to have any of that and openly scolded him on the bench. Lavoie witnessed it from a few feet away.
Lavoie said this bothered management a lot.
On another Lavoie note, the day of the trade, it's safe to say TVA Sports and RDS both interrupted their regularly scheduled programming to get to the breaking news as well as show MB's press conference. During the panel discussions, Lavoie said he texted a few GM's around the league, one of them replied saying "PK plays hockey, Weber is a hockey player." It kind of gives you an idea of the impression Subban has made around the hockey world.
This isn't to say now that PK is no longer a Hab, he's garbage. Far from it. He's sensational. But the hockey world is a small one and PK isn't as highly regarded in that circle as he is with the general public.
Fans love the Subban they see on camera. The amazing player, the charming and charismatic personality. He's great. But nobody knows what he's like behind closed doors in the locker room. And when multiple sources say the same thing, there is more truth to it than there isn't.
Legends like Serge Savard, Guy Lafleur, and Yvon Cournoyer had been asked about PK, they all said he needs to be a better teammate. Time will tell if he will do better in Nashville on that regard or if he will slowly start rubbing his new teammates the wrong way there as well. Nashville had the right to nix PK's NMC since the trade happened before the clause kicked in. They opted not to keep it. It leads me to believe that Poile knows of Subban's reputation and like any smart GM, he leaves the door open to deal PK if things don't work out.
In return, Habs did not get a ham of a player. A little older maybe, but nowhere near finished. Short term, Habs win this trade, in my opinion.
A few are decent, but are no where near Doughty's level.
