from Ken Dryden at the Toronto Star,

Hey Mom! Mom! Mom, look at me! I’m doing a somersault. I’m hopping on one foot. I’m scratching my left ear.

— P.K. Subban craves attention.

If only they wouldn’t shoot to one corner, deflect the puck to the other, make me split to one side, then back again, and throw up my glove to the top corner to catch it. It’d be a lot simpler.

— Carey Price prefers to avoid it.

Price is not as shy as he seems. He’s understated. It’s as if he learned something in his first awkward years in Montreal. He arrived to a mediocre team that had been mediocre for longer than Canadiens’ fans like to remember. Price had a prodigy’s talents and promise. He played so well so fast, he made the team seem better than it was. When it foundered, the task was, for Price, like trying to rescue a drowning man. So desperate to be saved, flailing about, the team, the fans, almost drowned him. He had a choice — get out of Montreal. Or learn. He decided to stay.///

Subban is his antithesis. Hey Mom, hey opponents, hey world, I’m here. His size, the fluid, forceful grace of the way he moves, his black skin in a mostly white-skinned game, his confident, risky style. Subban could be only scratching his left ear, and people would still notice....

read on