from Shannon Proudfoot of Sportsnet,

P.K. Subban has already polished off an impressive quantity of high-end sashimi when he finally starts to sound ticked off and refreshingly real. “What have you done?” he asks forcefully. “What puts you in a position where you can take shots at my character? What makes you such a great person?”

The Canadiens defenceman is sitting on the opposite side of a spacious booth in his favourite restaurant in Westmount, a suburb of Montreal, and he sounds so offended I almost assure him that I haven’t criticized him. But Subban isn’t really talking to me. He’s talking to “them”—the ones who pick apart who he is and how he operates, convinced they know the score. Go ahead and criticize his game, how he’s trying to do too much on the ice or whatever—that’s all fine. “But you take a shot at my character, that’s something completely different,” he says. “And I don’t have to listen to that.”

Subban is renowned for being unwilling or unable to turn down his own volume. It’s why the Norris Trophy winner has run afoul, again and again, of the harrumphing defenders of hockey’s honour. The criticism of him basically amounts to him having too much fun chasing down his insatiable goal to be the best, and not choosing his words and thoughts from a list of pre-approved options. And that’s why Subban is exactly what the NHL needs now—badly.

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