16 prospects down, and four to go. We’re in to a selection of players that could make an impact with the Canucks in the very near future, if they were just given an opportunity.

In fact, today’s prospect is already on the big club’s roster, having just recently received his first NHL call up, though he’s yet to make his NHL debut, and there’s no guarantee that it’s coming soon. Nevertheless, we remain high on this offensive defenceman.

Jordan Subban checks in a number four on our midterm list of the Vancouver Canucks’ top prospects.

Qualifications

A quick review the criteria for consideration for the rankings:

The player must be 25 years or younger, and

The player must be eligible for the Calder Trophy next season.

As a result, players that are considered to be “graduated” to the NHL (Brendan Gaunce, Nikita Tryamkin, Jake Virtanen, Anton Rodin) are not eligible.

Statistics

Origins and Projections

The Canucks selected Jordan Subban in the fourth round, 115th overall, at the 2013 NHL Entry Draft. The youngest brother of NHL all-star defenceman P.K. Subban, and once-highly touted Boston goaltending prospect Malcolm Subban, Jordan has been operating in the shadows of his older brothers’ accomplishments for much of his life already.

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Despite a small stature (he’s only 5-foot-9), cohort models have always looked good on Subban, particular in the vein of expected production. His consistent offensive dominance at all levels ensures that his statistical matches are potent offensively, even when there aren’t very many of them.

Throughout the season, Subban has held one of the best cohort projections of any Canucks prospect – it’s damn impressive how productive he is at such a young age. Currently, some of his successful matches include Sami Vatanen and Torey Krug, two offensive defencemen who are overcoming their size limitations by providing undeniable value to their team.

As mentioned, the vast majority of Subban’s matches that do stick in the NHL tend to pile up a lot of points – four out of the five current successful matches were rated as first pairing defenders by the pGPS model.

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One note on this: the model determines lines and pairing based strictly on production – ie., being among the top 60 scoring defencemen in a season will grant a 1st pairing rating (two 1st pairing defenders on each of the 30 teams) and so on down the line. However, power play scoring is not differentiated. In the NHL, I could see Subban skating on a lower pairing, while piling up points on the power play.

Scouting Report

The Elite Prospects scouting report on Subban provides a succinct summary of his abilities and challenges:

An offensive defenceman whose most prominent hallmark is his hockey sense. Very mobile skater that displays a high top-end acceleration. Offensively, his hockey sense is exhibited through his ability to create opportunities and make those small, meaningful plays along the wall and across the blueline. Backchecks hard but his size limits his physical effectiveness. His hockey sense kicks in defensively when he reads ahead of the play and cuts off passing and shooting lanes. Definitely needs to work on his awareness and proactivity defensively; however, his offensive game is all but elite at this point.

I added the bold for emphasis, because it provides a very accurate depiction of what he’s capable, and what he needs to work on. We’ve talked about Jordan Subban’s strengths and weakness ad nauseum in this space – now it’s time to show you.

There are two comments/responses that we get in regards to Subban above all others. One is, “can he really be worse defensively than Sbisa/Larsen/whoever?”, and the other is, “why don’t they just convert him to forward?”.

I’ll answer the question first, and we’ll just get this out of the way: it’s a terrible idea.

I understand the motivation behind it: guy gets a lot of points but struggles in his own end. Why not put him in an even more offensive position while taking him away from the area where he struggles? While this suggestion means well, it’s unfortunately overly simplistic, and is likely derived from a misunderstanding of Subban’s abilities. To move Subban further into the offensive zone is to limit his ability to do what he’s actually good at – controlling and creating plays from the point.

Subban’s comfort zone is along the top of the blueline, as the Comets like to employ a 1-3-1 formation on the power play that involves heavy rotation of the high man and the forwards on the sideboards. On the first unit, Subban controls the play up top, while Grenier is typically the trigger man at the left circle, and the centre of the unit (originally Michael Chaput, now either Curtis Valk or Pascal Pelletier) distributes from the right circle.

Subban is also adept at changing angles up top to get shots through – something that Troy Stecher has also been lauded for. The difference here is that Subban has a substantially better shot than Stecher does.

Stecher’s advantage over Subban is that he’s considerably more responsible in terms of positioning and anticipation. Subban on the other hand has been known to make poor reads rather frequently, and at the worst times, such as when he’s the last man back.

Which brings us to our other frequently asked question: how bad can he be in his own zone?

The answer, unfortunately, is pretty bad. Subban struggles in multiple areas of defensive play, including position, board battles, gap control, and decision making under pressure. Given time, he can race the puck through all three zones, or make a 60-foot tape-to-tape pass. But when forecheckers bare in on him, he can have trouble making the simplest of plays.

Even while on the power play while charged with leading the breakout, this has been an issue. As a result, he was often saddled with a second defenceman on the power play, in spite of Travis Green’s preference for four-forward units.

These types of mental errors have notably decreased since the beginning of the season, but even so, they are evidence as to why I’m been supportive of the Canucks keeping him in the minors while he irons out these issues. Even now, getting through a whole game without an facepalm-inducing giveaway is a recognizable achievement – which should tell you how far he’s had to come in that regard.

Still, I believe that Jordan Subban is destined to become a full-fledged NHL player. Given his skillset, I see him as a middle-to-bottom pairing defenceman at even strength, tasked with running a first unit power play. I’d postulate that he’s already the best power play quarterback in the organization (including Troy Stecher or Alex Edler) once inside the opposing blueline. It’s everything south of that line that might make Willie Desjardins pull his moustache hairs out.

Which brings us to another question, one that I referenced back during one of Andrey Pedan’s many recalls: can Subban ever thrive in a Willie Desjardins’ lineup?

As a side note on Subban, there’s an argument to be made that he just isn’t Willie Desjardins preferred type of defenceman. He’s a high event player that producing offence while also bleeding it in the other direction. Even though he might come out on top in the end, that doesn’t exactly mesh with the low event, outscore-the-opponent-2-1 hockey that the Canucks have been attempting to play for a lot of this season. Which is why there are a lot of us that believe there’s fire to the smoke that is the trade rumours surrounding him.

As a side note, TSN’s Craig Button was recently asked about trade interest in Subban around the NHL. He noted that there isn’t much of a market for the offensive defenceman at this point, given that every other team is aware of the same defensive issues that the Canucks are worried about. At this point, teams might want to wait to see whether Subban can conquer these deficiencies before offering something tangible for him. Of course, if he did make strides in that area of his game, the Canucks should absolutely be holding on to him.

Subban’s goals-for percentage with the Comets this year is a respectable 51.2%, which is 6.4% better than the Comets are performing when he’s not on the ice. This furthers the idea that, even though Subban can leak goals in the wrong direction, he’s still ending up tilting the ice towards the opposition. He still most certainly qualifies as a high event player. Despite missing six games, no Comets defenceman has been on the ice for more 5-on-5 goals, either for or against, than Jordan Subban. He’s been on the ice for the second most goals for (after Colby Robak) and the second most goals against (after David Shields).

He only recently rose above the 50% mark, and I’d think some of the credit for that achievement belongs to Colby Robak.

Robak has been the Comets’ best all around defenceman this season, and was paired with Subban for several games before Subban’s call up. Prior to that, Subban had spent a lot of the season with younger partners like Ashton Sautner and McEneny, or less reliable ones like John Negrin. The stable presence of Robak did wonders, as Subban was free to be himself and looked less hesitant doing so knowing that Robak would quickly recover turnovers – which in turn seemed to lead to less turnovers.

This is a welcome discovery, as it indicates that if Subban is paired with the right partner, he can contribute without being too great of a risk. The Canucks would do well to experiment with this. Giving the dearth of offence from their defence corps, they can’t really afford not to see what Subban has to offer.

Subban is set to play in the AHL all-star game at the end of the month, though I’m sure the next game he’d like to see himself playing is in the NHL. The Canucks are facing the two worst teams in the NHL on the road over the next two games – prime opportunities to try out a defenceman that could be a big part of the future, if he’s just given the chance. We’ll see if the coaches have the courage to give it a shot.





