When will we stop hearing about the Subban trade? (Trending Topics)

Thursday was Media Day at the World Cup of Hockey, and one of the biggest issues that came up throughout the day was the relitigation of whether the P.K. Subban-for-Shea Weber trade was a good one for Montreal to have made.

It is, of course, not one. But it’s also something that you would have thought was not going to be talked about for a while. It’s mid-September, still months away from the first game between the Predators and Canadiens (slated for Jan. 3 in Nashville), but Marc Bergevin, Carey Price, and Weber himself were fielding questions on one of the biggest trades in hockey history anyway.

And they all said the kinds of stuff you’d expect them to say. Leadership. Good person. Great defenseman. Hard to play against. All the talking points you’d want to see hit if you were trying to sell the world on why this trade was really good and not — say, for example, to pick an alternative totally at random just as a fer-instance — an unmitigated disaster.

At some point, don’t we just accept this happened and move on? Sure, occasionally dip back into the issue when Weber turns the puck over at the attacking blue line and gives up a 2-on-1, just to have a laugh at Bergevin’s expense again. I’m not the fun police here. And while few analytics-leaning hockey analysts have the kind of appetite for saying, “Told ya so,” that I do even I’m starting to think this is a bit much.

Has Weber looked good in Canada’s World Cup exhibition — sorry, “pre-tournament” — schedule? Sometimes. Others he’s looked like a 31-year-old who was never that mobile to begin with getting devoured by speed from some world-class talent. You almost hate to say it, but playing in Nashville even after Ryan Suter left has been to the benefit of his reputation, because you just don’t see him on national TV very much. It’s not as though the eye test tells you something all that different from the reputation and numbers. He hits people hard and he can shoot the puck through a wall. The “leadership” aspect of his game isn’t really something the Habs were lacking.

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But we all know that by now. Just like we know basically no one can do what Subban does on the ice, and no matter what you think of his particular brand of high-risk hockey, it mathematically results in more good outcomes for his teams than bad.

So the question, then, is when we all just get over the novelty of “P.K. Subban is on the Predators now” and “Wow, Shea Weber is a Hab!” Because speaking of saying, “Told you so,” that’s what has to happen pretty much all season, right? Every Weber own-zone play, every Subban end-to-end rush, we’re going to hear, “Well the other guy couldn’t have done that!” Obviously both games they play head-to-head in early 2017 — Subban returns to Montreal in March — is going to be a complete sideshow.

What will be interesting to watch is how people react to the Canadiens’ predictable decline into mediocrity or worse, which one might be able to schedule to happen around U.S. Thanksgiving, generally speaking. If they’re only okay out of the gate, well, they made a lot of changes this summer, Price is still getting his feet under him, etc. But if they get to the quarter mark of the season and they’re still not good, where does the blame start landing? Weber will be unassailable because he’s Shea Weber and he’s kind of inheriting a mess. But does Therrien catch any flak for not being that good at coaching? Does Pacioretty, as captain, take a bunch of the blame? What about Bergevin, who put together this underwhelming roster and pulled the trigger on trading a top-five defenseman in the first place, in pursuit of the “Tough To Play Against” quality that has, in the past few years, sent a number of teams spiraling down the standings?

If (when) that happens, you can bet a whole lot of toonies on the Subban trade being an ultimate symbol of where the team went wrong, even if the process started before that swap, and continued after it as well. The Canadiens have myriad problems — mediocre depth up front despite some real high-end guys, no truly great defense to speak of, an obstinate coach, and an over-reliance on a world-class goaltender — that will probably linger long after whatever apparent fixes are made if something goes wrong. Bergevin already burned the “trade a top player” card, and “coaching change” is probably next.

Given how everything shook out, it’s easy to forget Montreal went 18-4-2 through the end of November. The lead they had on the rest of the Eastern Conference eroded quickly when Price went down, which you’d expect from a team like this, but the Habs also made procedural improvements that might have kept them in the playoff race had their non-Price goaltending even remotely approached league-average. The odds Price isn’t at least that good are basically nil (unless he gets hurt again). In that case, everyone might get a pass regardless.

It also probably helps the remaining Canadiens that Subban goes to a team that’s already very good (goaltending notwithstanding, ha ha ha), so whatever success they end up having won’t be something you can necessarily attribute directly to his arrival. Should you expect Subban to exceed last season’s performance, given that he’ll be playing with Roman Josi, who’s slightly overrated but still significantly better than 74-year-old Andrei Markov? Yeah, I’d say so. Should you expect the Predators to finish with at least 10 more points in the standings than Montreal? I’d lean toward yes there, too. It’s hard for David Poile to look “smart” here because someone asked him to take on a top-five defender, but given how well he’s controlled almost everything else with the Preds’ roster in the past two years, you have to say he’s been judicious at a minimum.

Point being that no amount of Predators goodness will be seen as a credit to either Subban or Poile. They’re almost certainly going to do well and no one will notice too much because they’re supposed to. It would take Nashville winning the Presidents’ Trophy or the Cup for that to go from “Yeah, that figures,” to, “Wow, look what Subban and the Predators have done.”

But the Canadiens have positioned themselves as greatly improved both on the ice and in the room. The rumors that Michel Therrien was trashing Pacioretty as the worst skipper in Canadiens history hint that might not necessarily be true, despite the captain’s protestations. If Weber can’t smooth that over, at the very least, the expected on-ice problems will be a bit more pronounced. Losing is hard enough, but losing when there’s pre-existing discord in the room might be borderline impossible for this group.

The most likely point at which we stop hearing about this trade on a somewhat regular basis is probably a little after the time Bergevin runs out of people to blame besides himself. This has literally always been the issue: Bergevin incorrectly valued Subban for years, starting with the ill-advised bridge contract, and was then forced to sign him to the massive contract that ended up being one of the big reasons he was shipped out of town.

Any success Montreal has will be attributed to its lack of Subban, and perhaps to Weber’s influence as a bonus. Few will mention the strides the team’s systems took under Therrien last season, and Price’s health will likely be noted but not necessarily seen as the big driver of their rediscovered success.

For this season, deep mediocrity for Montreal and middling success for Nashville might be the only way out of an arduous season-long comparison-fest. That’s just because everyone will kind of be a little sullen about it.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

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