Subban goes public and deep fries the Canadiens for how they hung him out to dry after signing him to his massive contract
This past offseason, 33-year-old Toronto native P.K. Subban shocked many in the hockey community when he announced his retirement from pro hockey. Subban had played the game at a high level for many seasons before landing in New Jersey and watching his stock plummet. He was primarily moved around so much because of his enormous contract, but Subban recently spoke about the ordeal and revealed that the $9M AAV wasn't even on his radar after he had won the Norris Trophy in 2012-13.
During an interview on the TikTok Channel @PodLightz on The Pivot Podcast, Subban revealed that following the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign in which he won the Norris Trophy and the following season in 2013-14, he came into negotiations with the Montreal Canadiens with an open mind and wanting to finish his career as a Canadien. However, when the Habs presented him with an 8-year, $72M deal, the offer was too good to turn down.
Well, as fate would have it, when the Habs were looking to shed some salary, they were able to free up a little over a million per season by swapping Subban for then Nasvhille Predators captain Shea Weber. Weber, who made $7.85M per season would go on to play 5 seasons in Montreal before an injury cut his career short. He has since been moved to the Vegas Golden Knights, where he intends to ride out the rest of his contract on LTIR, which won't happen until 2026.
Subban revealed on The Pivot Podcast that had the Canadiens approached him with an offer to sign for $7M and remain a Canadien for the remainder his career, he would have signed the deal without hesitation.
"If they would have came to me after I won the Norris [Trophy] that year and said 'hey, listen, you know, I gotta give you credit, kid. You went out, you performed, you did what you said you were going to do, now we want to make you a Montreal Canadien, not only for this term of this contract, but for the rest of your career', I would have signed for $7M. I didn't care. It didn't have to be that complicated. I grew up a Montreal Canadiens fan in Toronto. There was only one play I wanted to play in my career. I didn't want to play anywhere else and I don't understand, as an organization, when you have a player that wants to play for you, that wants to lay it all on the line for you every night, how you don't value that a certain way. But it is a business at the end of the day.
-Subban on the Canadiens organization hanging him out to dry just two years into his new contract
-Subban on the Canadiens organization hanging him out to dry just two years into his new contract
@podlightz PK wanted to play for Montreal for his entire career 💯 Check out the full episode of @thepivot on YouTube. #nhl #thepivotpodcast #pksubban #montrealcanadiens #habs ♬ original sound - podlightz
I mean, it's always tough to feel bad for someone who is making $9M per year doing what they love, but it was very apparent in the drop off of Subban's play after he left Montreal that he wasn't happy with how everything unfolded and being moved to Nasvhille and then to a bottom-dwelling New Jersey team. And it's not as though Subban was under-delivering either. In the first year of his 8-year, $72M deal with the Canadiens, Subban recorded 60 points in 82 games and followed that up with a 51-point season in just 68 games in 2015-16. It's like Subban said, though.. at the end of the day, the NHL is a business.
| POLL | ||
JANVIER 3 | 512 ANSWERS Subban goes public and deep fries the Canadiens for how they hung him out to dry after signing him to his massive contract Do you feel bad for Subban? | ||
| Not at all | 259 | 50.6 % |
| Yeah, for sure | 94 | 18.4 % |
| Maybe a little | 76 | 14.8 % |
| Don't care | 83 | 16.2 % |
| List of polls | ||
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