P.K. Subban Appreciation Thread Norris Finalist

[Machine of Loving Grace]

I'm curious. What do you mean by Theodore being on "the juice"??

Propecia. He was rejected by the Olympics IOC for using a hair growth stimulant but people like to think steroids is a super elixir which lead to his Hart trophy win.

I'm sure In the Hearts was just joshing though

[Commandant]

Propecia. He was rejected by the Olympics IOC for using a hair growth stimulant but people like to think steroids is a super elixir which lead to his Hart trophy win.

I'm sure In the Hearts was just joshing though

Propecia doesn't do anything to help your on ice performance.

Why Propecia is illegal, is because it is a masking agent.

If you take certain types of steroids and Propecia, the urine test (at the time 2005-06) couldn't detect the steroids. So it was banned as a masking agent. Remember that Theodore's positive test was a Team Canada administered test to ensure potential candidates were clean prior to the 2006 Olympics.

http://www.emedexpert.com/facts/finasteride-facts.shtml

"At the end of 2004 the World Anti-Doping Agency added finasteride to its list of banned agents in international sports. The agency calls finasteride a masking agent that hides the use of more nefarious drugs like the steroid nandrolone."

[Machine of Loving Grace]

A must read for us Subban fans and the people who questioned Subban: http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/johnston-subban-burning-to-prove-em-wrong/

“It’s very easy now for people to speak positively about our team and about my situation because of the way we’ve played this season,” Subban told sportsnet.ca during a candid one-on-one conversation Thursday. “But I don’t forget the people that said that I’ll never play in a Habs jersey again or that I’m selfish or that I’m greedy or that I’m confused. I’m thinking I’m a lot better than what I actually am.

“I don’t forget those things, and maybe those comments and those people are the reason why we’re having such a great season this year.”

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

A must read for us Subban fans and the people who questioned Subban: http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/johnston-subban-burning-to-prove-em-wrong/

Amusing comments by Leafs Nation in the 'Comments' section

Taking to heart all the negative commentary during his hold-out is of a piece with the guy's outsized ego. But what's especially impressive is that he has channelled all of that into a drive to excel. One thing's for sure, though, he's not going to let bygones be bygones when it comes to the next contract - we will have to pay through the nose. And good on him, he's one of the very best in the game and will be paid as such.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

I don't mind paying through the nose for a guy who should win the Norris trophy this year and would probably win it next year. It was the right policy to make with Subban and it set a precedent. It's not about Subban but with the team. We might have a high profile prospect in the future who has a breakout season and never gets better. If we paid him through the nose long term expecting long term results we might get burned. Better to play safe and pay later.

I wasn't saying this before but I've come to accept that Marc Bergevin knows the NHL better than myself or anyone else yapping on the Internet

[illWill]

A must read for us Subban fans and the people who questioned Subban: http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/johnston-subban-burning-to-prove-em-wrong/

This quote from Josh Gorges stuck out at me as a reason for the success Subban is having. “He’s not trying to be the flashy superstar; he’s trying to be a great defenceman.”

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

Subban will be paid at least $7 mil. This means that we will, in effect, be esteeming him as a 'franchise' player, the kind of guy who can lead your team to a Stanley Cup.

I have no problem with that myself. He has surpassed my own projection for him (Chris Chelios) and effectively dominates in all aspects of the game. If he can keep his head from expanding to explosively self-destructive proportions (and his new demeanour this years suggests that he can) there should be no reason to expect a significant regression.

It just feels weird. We haven't had an internally developed superstar position-player in this organization since Guy Lafleur. Now it seems, somewhat unexpectedly, that we have one. And if Galy develops as projected, within a couple of years we will have two. Both quite young. It's nice, but an oddly strange sensation for someone who has followed this club for the past 30 years.

[johnnyhasbeen]

I repeat myself, Bobby who? We are watching the best d-man ever. Many years yet to prove it, but he will. Mark my word.

[JMMR]

Subban will be paid at least $7 mil. This means that we will, in effect, be esteeming him as a 'franchise' player, the kind of guy who can lead your team to a Stanley Cup.

I have no problem with that myself. He has surpassed my own projection for him (Chris Chelios) and effectively dominates in all aspects of the game. If he can keep his head from expanding to explosively self-destructive proportions (and his new demeanour this years suggests that he can) there should be no reason to expect a significant regression.

It just feels weird. We haven't had an internally developed superstar position-player in this organization since Guy Lafleur. Now it seems, somewhat unexpectedly, that we have one. And if Galy develops as projected, within a couple of years we will have two. Both quite young. It's nice, but an oddly strange sensation for someone who has followed this club for the past 30 years.

Would you not have said Theodore was a superstar albeit for a very brief period of time!

I repeat myself, Bobby who? We are watching the best d-man ever. Many years yet to prove it, but he will. Mark my word.

I hope your right but come on do you even think PK will be a good as lidstrom?

[johnnyhasbeen]

_{Pk is a pnt a game player, Lidstrom? Are you kidding?}

_{orr was1.5 points a game career avg. Subban will have stats like that. Orr was in his 4th season when he was better than a point a game. PK has been here how many? Right, he has already met that mark a year sooner in a league without weak expansion teams. Orr today is not 1.5 points per game as he wouldn't play against AHL players as he did in post expansion NHL.}

[Machine of Loving Grace]

I know it's fun to call him L'Orr Noir and all that but just watch Bobby. Bobby was a generational player.

Also, it's funny what Cucumber said. We have had a franchise superstar since Guy. He just stayed in his crease so we forget sometimes.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

Like double posting here but BOBBY ORR LED THE LEAGUE IN SCORING.

[JMMR]

I know it's fun to call him L'Orr Noir and all that but just watch Bobby. Bobby was a generational player.

Also, it's funny what Cucumber said. We have had a franchise superstar since Guy. He just stayed in his crease so we forget sometimes.

Oh yeah that Pat Roy guy!

_{Pk is a pnt a game player, Lidstrom? Are you kidding?}

_{orr was1.5 points a game career avg. Subban will have stats like that. Orr was in his 4th season when he was better than a point a game. PK has been here how many? Right, he has already met that mark a year sooner in a league without weak expansion teams. Orr today is not 1.5 points per game as he wouldn't play against AHL players as he did in post expansion NHL.}

1.5 PPG? Like PK will score over 100 points ever year with ease?@

And get into the 120 range?

[Machine of Loving Grace]

We are acting like Orr couldn't dominate today?

Have you ever watched old footage of the Rocket?

Post Achilles injury he could still skate the rink in 14.5

In crap skates to todays standards.

The older generation were born great and tempered into even greater. Orr would still dominate.

Lemieux in his last seasons of hockey, despite the trap, despite age, despite cancer, despite injuries was still the best player in the league.

If Subban became half as great as Orr I would be thrilled. I can't stand seeing people try to diminish the skill in those days.

[hab29RETIRED]

I love subban - by far the best non-goalie hab home grown player since Lafleur. I've been very vocal for the last year that we should sign him to a twelve year deal and during his hold out was a big advocate for a 8 year/$40m deal.

Despite how good I think he is. He is no bobby Orr. Coffey was no bobby Orr. Lidstrom and harvey (who ive only seen on dvd) was no bobby Orr (but their impact in how they controlled the pace of the game make them IMO as great a defenceman as Orr). Bourque was no Orr. Potvin was no Orr. Robinson was no Orr. As much as I loved Chelios and have never forgiven Savard for trading him, chelios was no Orr.

Orr, Gretzky and Lemieux are on one tier, everyone else is below them - and I grew up hating Gretzky because he took over Lafleur's place as being the greatest player in the game. Even Lafleur who played against Orr said that Orr on ONE leg was better than anyone else.

Yes it was a different league. Would Orr get a 150 points today, probably not. But Gretzky also would not get 200 points or 90 goals today. Lemieux also would not put up the same numbers.

If for his era, subban can have as much of an impact as Robinson, potvin, Coffey, bourque or Chelios I'd be very happy - and I think he has the potential to be better than some of them.

If he can come close to having the type of impact as Lidstrom, I'd be easthatic. But subban is no Orr.

_{Pk is a pnt a game player, Lidstrom? Are you kidding?}

_{orr was1.5 points a game career avg. Subban will have stats like that. Orr was in his 4th season when he was better than a point a game. PK has been here how many? Right, he has already met that mark a year sooner in a league without weak expansion teams. Orr today is not 1.5 points per game as he wouldn't play against AHL players as he did in post expansion NHL.}

[habs rule]

It is completely pointless to compare different generations of hockey players. For instance Gordie Howe would never have same impact in the NHL we have now, unless sitting in the box for 5 or 6 penalties a game counts. They are different times. Can you imagine what would happen today if john ferguson told bobby clarke to break a players ankle? The staged fights are a result of the new rules, back when Fergie ,The Rocket, Gordie, Bobby played there were no staged fights, there were wars. Last man standing wins. Concussions? What the hell was that? When Weiner the Whiner played thee lots of easy teams to prey on, heck they won a lot of games 7-6. Great goaltending? great defence? I think not so much. PK is truly a star of this generation and will continue to be for many years, I hope, and while i hate long term contracts, he might have to be an exception. 8 years at 7 million is probably cheap. MB will do the right thing because he is just too valuable to this team. We don't know how long Markov will be with us from an age and injury standpoint, I hope 3 years, anything over that is a bonus. Beaulieu and Tinordi are up and coming along with some others so our defence future looks awfully good.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

Different league means players develop differently.

Pure talent is still pure talent.

Gretzky, Lemieux, Richard, Howe, Orr, all of them would be leading the league today. You can't take away their skating, their shot, their intelligence or their passion.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

Since everybody jumped on it, let me repeat what I said: "We haven't had an internally developed superstar position-player in this organization since Guy Lafleur." Yes, Roy was a superstar (and so was Theo for that one golden season). Koivu would have been a position player superstar, but his knee was destroyed. So what I said stands.

Comparing Subban to Orr is just ridiculous. Orr had a plus/minus of +124. He led the league in scoring. He revolutionized his position and thereby the game itself. We can now extrapolate with some confidence that Subban will likely become one of the top 5 defencemen of his era (although much can still go wrong, including his ego). Orr is the top defenceman of any era - the only player I've heard seriously compared to him is Doug Harvey. PK does not play in that league. Frankly, players of that kind, you see coming for years in advance. People heard about Orr when he was just a kid; ditto Gretzky. Nothing, and I mean nothing, in PK's profile puts him in that category.

Maybe he has a chance to be on the level of a Larry Robinson. Frankly, that should be plenty exciting for all of us to contemplate.

EDIT: funny thing, I was just scanning Orr's stats on Wikipedia. Even playing out the string in Chicago, he was *still* more than a point-per-game defenceman!! And yet he was universally regarded as finished due to destroyed knees. I guess the problem was the sheer physical pain rather than his on-ice ability to produce? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Orr

His career points totals are akin to Guy Lafleur's, in the sense being punctuated by about 6 years of 110-130 points. Scary stuff.

[johnnyhasbeen]

I remember Orr in Chicago, and yes it was the pain that force him to retire. I will get back to you on this thread in 10 years when the verdict is in. Until then I will sit back and enjoy.

Yes Bobby had a huge plus minus, in a league where 7-1 scores were common place. Go Seals!! Nobody will ever do that with parity in place. He would have been great even today, Subban great? Maybe. He never broke a guys leg with a slap shot, just sayin. A point a game for any player, let alone a d-man in todays league is really good. Lidstom never accomplished that even in the short season he played. I remember watching Orr and hearing all the praise as a kid. He was a rookie the same year I started to play minor hockey. I hated him then and still don't like him. He was a Bruin. End of story. I was a Harvey fan back then....

Ummm I heard of Lindros when he was a kid.... just sayin.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

When it comes to comparing players across generations, you can't just contrast individuals in isolation from context. Heck, due to conditioning alone even today's 3rd-liners would probably dominate were they to be magically transported to the 1960s (when guys like Phil Esposito worked Joe-jobs in the offseason and 'played themselves into shape' over the year). What you can do is look at how a given player or team dominated relative to the competition they had. Orr was absolutely the dominant player of his generation, so dominant that he changed how the whole game of hockey is played. Very few other players have ever owned the sport like he did. Gretzky did, and so, for more brief periods, did Lemieux. Crosby has shown signs of being able to lap the field when it comes to scoring in much the same way that those latter two did, but his health has so far prevented him from really pulling away from the pack. The norm is to have a clutch of 'great' players (Yzerman, Sakic, etc; Stamkos, Malkin; Lafleur, Dionne, Trottier) duking it out season after season. When a guy comes along who just overawes everybody else, that's something special and historic.

I don't hear anyone saying that Subban is going to rise above all of his contemporaries to be THE dominant hockey player of his generation. And that's why he is highly unlikely ever to be comparable to Orr.

It's the same way with teams, I think. The Habs of 1976-77 are The Greatest NHL Team of All Time not because they had a more powerful roster on paper than the 1985 Oilers, but because they lost 8 - count 'em, 8 - games - before going 12-2 to win the Cup. We're talking complete, abject domination of the entire league from pole to pole (with the sole exception of a competitive series against the Islanders). The Oil never even approached this level of supremacy.

Greatness is defined by its context. And taken that way, there's little chance for Subban to match Orr, or for any team to match the 1977 Habs.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

Ummm I heard of Lindros when he was a kid.... just sayin.

And Lindros dominated. Won the Hart trophy in his second year. Made way too many enemies and took too many injuries. I remember when Kasparitis injured him, the Penguins bench was celebrating. That's how much people didn't like him in the league.

[Commandant]

Saying he'll be better than Bobby Orr is freaking crazy.... and I'm one of the biggest fans of PK out there.

Bobby is a top 3 player of ALL TIME.

[Colin]

And Lindros dominated. Won the Hart trophy in his second year. Made way too many enemies and took too many injuries. I remember when Kasparitis injured him, the Penguins bench was celebrating. That's how much people didn't like him in the league.

Don't diss Lindros. His mom will come after you!

[Colin]

Interesting discussion on PK's potential here. I have a question: is it possible to have a "generational" talent anymore? Crosby and Ovechkin were supposed to be something like that, but haven't panned out as such. They haven't taken the game to new levels. Is that because they just aren't good enough, or is it because the rest of the players in the league are all in peak fitness and all reasonably talented so the difference can never be so great?

Or to put a different spin on the question, if PK's type of game came out in the 60's and 70's, would his ability to defend, score, hit, and lead compare favourably to Orr? I don't recall Orr hitting much.....

Bobby Orr was Bobby Orr because he was better than guys who smoked too much, drank too much, worked themselves into shape over the course of a season. Also, he had better vision than most at his time. I would suggest that Orr wouldn't have the same impact today. Yes, I saw him play.

I'm not saying PK is better than, or will be as good as Orr. But I will say that I won't close the door to that possibility. Some dude named Lafleur was average for his first couple of seasons, then broke out big time, so saying PK will never be all that and a bag of chips because he wasn't completely dominant out of the gate is just silly, IMO.

PK is an unbelievable and *still developing* talent. It's a shame that he plays in today's game, in some ways, because I believe had he been on the ice 40 years ago, this conversation might have been a little different.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

See my last post on greatness being inescapably linked to context. If you transported Subban to 1972, he would certainly dominate, but so, probably, would any top-4 defencemen today.

As for whether 'generational talents' are still possible, I say yes. If you look at Crosby, he was definitely pulling away from the pack before suffering his brutal and deliberately-induced concussion in the New Year's Game (a direct consequence of the NHL's criminal neglect of player safety). There are grounds to speculate that he has been prevented from becoming that generation-defining talent primarily because of injuries, not the impossibility of such talents existing.

But we need to keep in mind that Orr, Gretzky and Lemieux were historic rarities. It is not normal for a player to so thoroughly dominate his contemporaries. To my imperfect knowledge, it had not happened before Orr (unless we want to consider Joe Malone's jaw-dropping feats early in the century). Morenz, Howe, Richard, these were all great players, but they did not leave the pack behind like those other three. In that sense, the label 'generational talent' is misleading. What we're really talking about are historic talents. And you can't infer from the absence of such a talent in any given generation that it's not longer possible for them to exist.