True, Weber’s game is sometimes subtle. He will make one quick, efficient pass to accomplish what P.K. Subban does with three jukes, a shoulder shake and a spinorama — but the end result is the same. Montreal fans, however, will take style over substance every time. They swallow Subban’s act hook, line and sinker while condemning Weber as old, boring and (now that he’s suffered a couple of injuries) fragile.

It’s appalling. If you prefer Subban’s style, that’s your right. If you choose to believe that the trade that sent him to Nashville for Weber was a terrible one, that’s your right also.

What is not right is that you choose to use a very rough stretch in Weber’s life and career to condemn the man in the crudest, most vicious terms. Since the Canadiens announced that Weber had undergone knee surgery and would be out at least until December, I’ve seen him called everything from geriatric to an over-the-hill pylon.

-Jack Todd at the Montreal Gazette on Shea Weber. Read more from Todd on this topic.