Defenseman clear choice in survey that also determined Nashville is popular stop on NHL schedule

P.K. Subban is the NHL’s most overrated player, according to an NHL players’ poll recently conducted by The Athletic, the results of which were published Thursday morning.

It was not a scientific survey but it did include the opinions of 198 players nearly evenly split between the Western and Eastern Conferences. Those players were granted anonymity for their responses to 12 questions on a wide variety of subjects.

The story noted that only 63 percent of those asked answered the question about who was most overrated, but 23 percent of those who did named the Predators’ defenseman. Subban was a Norris Trophy winner with Montreal in 2013 and a finalist with Nashville in 2018. He is a three-time NHL All-Star and has 400 career points in 629 games, including 122 points (32 goals, 90 assists) in two-plus seasons with the Predators.

“He’s got a good shot and that’s about it,” a Western Conference player told The Athletic.

Next on the list was Winnipeg forward Patrick Laine, with nine percent of the votes. In all, 45 different players received at least one vote in the “overrated” category.

Other notable findings of the poll:

• Nashville was the second choice for most fun city to visit on the road with 19 percent of the vote. Vegas (26 percent) was first and Chicago (13 percent) was third.

• When asked which team has the best fans, the Predators finished third with 11 percent of the votes behind Vegas (28 percent) and Montreal (18 percent).

• Pekka Rinne apparently does not have a reputation as a big-game performer. The 2018 Vezina Trophy winner was not one of the top five answers to the question of which goalie players want in net for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Montreal’s Carey Price was the clear winner.

• Overwhelmingly, NHL players want to participate in the Olympics. Only one who responded said he did not think the season should be stopped every four years to allow for Olympic participation.