Therrien makes a big revelation about the relationship between P.K. Subban and his former CH teammates

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Jeff Drouin
September 13, 2022 (8:21 PM)

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Former Habs head coach Michel Therrien was on La Poche Bleue le midi and the new TVA Sports contributor is excited about Nick Suzuki's appointment as Habs captain

"I saw Nick Suzuki develop a little bit in his early days in the NHL. I think it's a very good appointment and it was a good time to announce it. I'm hearing a lot of good things about his maturity and the way he's handling himself. When we played, the Flyers against the Canadiens in the bubble in Toronto, he was their best player. I think it's a great move by the Canadiens."

What caught the eye during this segment was how the Habs organization went about naming their new captain prior to the 2015-16 season. We remember that the year before, there were four assistants, Tomas Plekanec, Andrei Markov, P.K. Subban and Max Pacioretty.

Finally, after the vote of the players, it was Pacioretty who was named captain and almost unanimously, according to the former coach of the Canadiens.

"In the case of Pacioretty, we wanted to avoid distractions. Everyone was talking about it in the summer because we didn't have a captain the year before. The fans and the media at the time were blaming us for not having a captain. We had a dinner, before the first day, where we gathered all the players. At the end, we kept all the players who had been there the year before and who knew the locker room and had them vote in a secret ballot. Max Pacioretty won by 98% or 97%. Only two guys had voted for P.K. Subban."

Only two players voted for Subban? Let's just say that says a lot about the fact that he wasn't well liked by some of his teammates. It's true that the number 76 of the Habs was a player who was not unanimously appreciated in the dressing room and that his style of play annoyed Michel Therrien at times. In this case, we must admit that the fact that he received only two votes does not surprise anyone today.

The following season, Subban was traded to the Nashville Predators in exchange for a future Habs captain, Shea Weber, in a deal that is still being talked about six years later. As for Pacioretty, he wore the captain's "C" for three seasons before leaving for Vegas in return for Tomas Tatar, a second round pick and... Nick Suzuki, the CH's new captain.

It's a case of serendipity in life.