from Ken Campbell of The Hockey News,

Matt Pfeffer had made peace with the fact that the Montreal Canadiens were going to trade star defenseman P.K. Subban. But he didn’t think dealing Subban to the Nashville Predators for Shea Weber was a good idea and he made his feelings known to Canadiens management. But Pfeffer is not convinced that is why his contract as an analytics consultant with the Canadiens was not renewed.

“They didn’t tell me it was over that,” Pfeffer told thn.com. “But I guess everyone knows now where I stood on the Subban-Weber trade. There are times when there’s some possibility that there would be another side to the argument, but this was one of those things where it was so, so far outside what could be considered reasonable. I made a pretty strong case, but I made the case that the analytics made. This wasn’t a personal thing.”

So Pfeffer believes the Canadiens are ultimately going to get fleeced on this trade. He can’t speculate on why the Canadiens didn’t take his advice, but it tells us that when it comes to analytics and its place in decision making, the NHL establishment is still very much finding its way.

“The person I reported (director of legal affairs/capologist John Sedgwick) to liked my work and the methodology behind it and believed in it,” Pfeffer said, “and there were others inside the team that didn’t believe in it and maybe had their mind made up about advanced stats. I think there’s been a bit of pushback from people in the NHL recently about this kind of stuff.”

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