Thursday MOurning Skate: P.K. Subban is the next Bobby Orr

Editor's Note: this post was purchased by Habs Eyes on the Prize Managing Editor Andrew Berkshire for a $50 donation to Movember. There are still 2 days to donate if you'd like a post on the topic of your choice to get the same treatment. Feel free to disagree in the comments instead of starting a torch-and-pitchfork mob.

P.K. Subban arrived in the NHL in the 2008-09 season and has been dominant ever since. The way I see it, he excels in every area of the game that Bobby did. I'll break it down for you.

Scoring

Bobby Orr was a prolific scorer, and was the last defenseman to lead the league in scoring. Also the last defenseman to win the Hart (until Chris Pronger's agent bribed the voting committee). Anybody has a ton of points when you're dishing up to Phil Esposito, after all. P.K. follows in this same tradition. Sure, he doesn't lead the league in scoring, but he also has Scott Gomez to pass to. Honestly that's probably good for negative points. There is one place where P.K. and Bobby have similar track records, though: clutch scoring. Everyone's seen the famous photo of Bobby flying through the air after scoring the cup-clinching goal. SImilarly, everyone who's ever watched P.K. Subban in the playoffs knows he's good for at least one goal in the last ten minutes of the third. You can practically set your watch to it.

Defense

Bobby Orr won 8 straight Norris trophies for Best Defenseman. Every time that stupid "rename the trophies" idea comes around, Bobby Orr is usually who they'd rename it for. He was the greatest defenseman. Defense is made up of a couple different parts, but it comes down to preventing the other team from scoring. PK Subban is good at that. On last year's absolutely atrocious habs team, he managed to escape with a +9. That's quite the feat, honestly. Going deeper than stats, PK is good at taking away the puck (26 takeaways) as well as blocking shots (second only to Josh Gorges, who I'm pretty sure was bolted into the ice in front of the crease) as well as...

Hitting and Fighting

Ah yes, hitting and fighting. It's not something Bobby was known for exactly, but he certainly could punish a forward with the best of them. Or a defenseman for that matter. We all know how well PK Subban hits. Especially Brad Marchand. Brad knows really well:

Ouch. Wouldn't want to take a hit from either Bobby or PK, to be honest. Much less so a punch.

A Man of the People

One thing that Bobby Orr was very well known for was that he was polite and nice to everyone he met. P.K. Subban is similar (except for the polite and nice part, but he smiles all the time). During the lockout, PK Subban has been doing a whole bunch of community outreach in Montreal. Both are extremely popular in their respective towns, and I'm sure as soon as PK Subban scores a cup-clincher they'll be putting a statue up in Montreal. Won't be long now.

So there you have it. PK Subban is basically the next Bobby Orr.

The preceding post was written as part of a Movember fundraiser. Thanks to Andrew for the generous donation. If you'd like one of your own, give $50 to http://mobro.co/CorneliusH and I'll be happy to whip one up for you.