ANAHEIM, Calif. – When P.K. Subban planted the Tennessee Titans’ sword as the team’s ’12th Man’ on the field at Nissan Stadium, took off his shirt and twirled at their game last Sunday, Hal Gill was transported back to their time together with the Montreal Canadiens.

“He goes in the locker room and he’s doing the dance and he wants to be seen and he has the three low fives and bow and arrows and celebrations and whatever it is after scoring a goal,” said Gill, who also played parts of two seasons with the Nashville Predators. “P.K. brings his own little side show with him. P.K.’s sizzle … he calls it sizzle.”

Subban brings the sizzle to San Jose to face the Sharks in a key Western Conference battle on Saturday night (10:30 ET) in the Yahoo Sports Free NHL Live Stream of the Day. Head here to watch it live!

After the Canadiens traded Subban to the Predators last summer for Shea Weber, there were rumors and that Subban’s ‘sizzle’ act had worn thin in their locker room. Subban later told Sports Illustrated he believed the deal was a personality trade and wasn’t as much about hockey.

Throughout his career, Weber had been the type of stoic ‘logo on the front is more important than the name on the back’ personality that hockey culture tends to praise.

He had set that tone in Nashville’s locker room for a lot of years, and adding him to Montreal’s, while subtracting Subban’s showmanship, was seen as a positive. Adding Subban’s ‘larger than life’ persona to the Predators’ room that had been dominated by Weber for so long was seen as a much bigger adjustment for Nashville.

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But so far, the Predators have embraced their newest superstar and he has helped his teammates better understand how to enjoy their own celebrities as hockey stars in Nashville.

“I mean, I think it is a big difference in personalities. It’s like polar opposite. (P.K.) is a character and he’s himself every single day. He shows his emotions and he’s energetic and brings a ton of energy to the locker room,” Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne said. “He has been great. It didn’t take a long time for him to fit in or anything. I feel like hopefully we have made him able to feel at home in our locker room. He seems really comfortable and he has been playing well, which is the most important thing. Off the ice too that’s really important. He can feel at home with us and in the locker room, but it’s good. It has been a good start so far.”

It’s hard to get more than just snippets of how NHL teammates interact with one another in a locker room or away from the rink. The occasional all-access show helps fill in a few blanks, but ultimately the public rarely get a big window.

Personalities within a team can come together or clash and if teammates don’t get along, it’s hard for them to enjoy their jobs. According to those who embraced him, Subban brought energy and fun to the locker room no matter the circumstance.

“I thought he handled things great in the sense of things weren’t going so well in Montreal in the timespan I was there, but he was always positive and always maintained a positive attitude and never was the guy who came to the rink and you didn’t want to see him there because you thought ‘oh this guy is going to be negative, this guy is going to complain.’ He’s never like that,” said Victor Bartley, who played with both Weber in Nashville and Subban for a brief period in Montreal.

“That’s one of Subby’s greatest assets is he creates energy and creates positivity around him and that just filters on through the team and that just makes players want to come to the rink and want to be happy knowing you have that kind of atmosphere to come to.”

Some of the perceived issues with Subban may not have been his fault but more involved the mix of players in the room. The Canadiens never really replaced the veteran voice of former captain Brian Gionta after 2013-14, which couldn’t have harmed team chemistry for Subban.

“It didn’t fit in Montreal because I don’t think they had the leadership they needed to handle a player like (Subban),” Gill said. “There needs to be some steady guidance and I think Brian Gionta was great. He’s kind of a quiet guy who kind of just kept everyone in line and everyone knew Gio was in charge and P.K. knew that. When they didn’t re-sign him or traded a guy like (Josh) Gorges, that kind of – the game got away from him and there was no steady vision in the locker room. So I think that’s where P.K. went wrong but I don’t think that’s necessarily P.K.’s fault. I think that was a team problem.”

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