Montreal Sports - Montreal Canadiens

Let’s hope PK Subban is everything everyone ever wanted in a fine young defenseman and more…. Or else. 

After pundits from across this great hockey loving land have blasted Canadiens’ General manager Bob Gainey of rushing young talent up too quickly, Pierre Gauthier has announced that Subban will make the jump prior to the Olympic break to perhaps play in the Habs’ next two crucial games against the Philadelphia Flyers. 

With Paul Mara not making the trip, Superman-Josh Gorges who says he’s ready to play after being dinged on the noggin by a Mike Green slapshot may be day to day and Andrei Markov having taken a therapy day yesterday, along with the fact that Marc-André Bergeron is out for at least 6 weeks, there was an opening at the D position that needed to be filled.

Perhaps Subban would have stayed in Hamilton under different circumstances. Of the candidates that could fill that spot, Mathieu Carle is out for the season with a shoulder injury and Yannick Weber is playing for Switzerland in the Olympics. Time for PK to don on a Habs Jersey, I guess.

Funny, though, how times have changed recently. It appeared that nearly all were in favour of absolutely NOT rushing Subban up to the big leagues. It was considered a great move to keep him in Hamilton for the season. However now, some hockey chat rooms are criticizing Habs management, saying that if PK played for any other team, he’d already be an NHL’er by now. Talk about having your cake and eating it too..

The one thing, however that any NHL team wants, if they are lucky enough to experience it, is to have an AHL prospect dominate at that level before they bring him up to join the big boys. Well, with PK Subban, it appears he has arrived.

Subban, as a defenseman in the AHL is a solid +29, has 11 goals and 28 assists in 52 games played and is 3^rd among all AHL defenseman for points. His offense isn’t the biggest stat here as his offense was never in question, but the PLUS 29 he brings with him from Hamilton shows that his determination to become a better defensive defenseman has paid off and he is ready for the next big step.

Now it’s up to Subban to stay up with the team after the Olympic break and put all arguments to rest as to whether he is yet another casualty of a premature escalation to the bigs, or the bright beginning of the new Habs’ development system coming to fruition.

Read on for the official Habs’ presser on Subban.