Subban Summit goes Boston’s way as Bruins beat Habs in preseason action at the Bell Centre .
BRUINS ROOKIE GOALTENDER gets the better of his brother P.K. in preseason victory
The Boston Bruins were congratulating goaltender Malcolm Subban at game’s end Monday night, having beaten the Canadiens 6-3, and the delicious sense of occasion was at hand:
The final puck used in the game lay snow-caked in the corner, and Bruins forward Milan Lucic skated slowly to it, bent down and gloved it off the ice.
And then, as he skated toward the goal, souvenir in hand, Lucic flipped the puck over the glass to a fan.
We don’t know whether Malcolm Subban, having just stopped every one of the dozen shots he had faced in his first-ever NHL game, is a collector of memorabilia.
But his first “game puck” went not back to Boston on the Bruins’ charter flight, perhaps bound for a plaque, but out of the Bell Centre in the pocket of a fan.
The Canadiens vs. the Bruins is a compelling story in normal times, if such a thing exists between these two clubs.
Historic rivals, bad blood, pathways to the Hall of Fame both paved and potholed, wildly passionate fan bases.
So how many more layers of fun is it when the Habs and the Bruins dress two brothers, a shooter on one team and a goaltender on the other?
Monday offered a half-game duel between Canadiens defenceman P.K. Subban and his 19-year-old sibling, Malcolm, a blue-chip goaltending prospect for the Bruins.
It was the first meeting of the pair in an official game, which was witnessed in person by their grandfather, father and a Toronto neighbour.
P.K., a greybeard at 24, says he’d only previously faced Malcolm in summer hockey, “road hockey, with mini sticks in the hallway or on the backyard rink.”
P.K. Subban had two shots on goal Monday.
His first, a power play laser, probably gave windburn to Bruins starter Chad Johnson 1:15 into the second period as it whistled into the net.
P.K.’s second, well, let’s charitably say it wasn’t fired from the same cannon, coming on his brother from along the boards just inside the blue line, eight-and-a-half minutes into the third period.
“I think he had one (shot),” Malcolm Subban said after the game, having kicked it effortlessly aside.
And then, with a mischievous grin:
“It was about the slowest shot ever. A little knucklepuck.”
P.K. called the game a “cool experience,” saying any goal he might have scored on his kid brother would have come second to helping his team win.
Malcolm Subban, a firstround selection of the Bruins in 2012 (24th overall), almost surely is headed to the minors to spend his first year as a pro. Boston is expected to make its first camp cuts on Wednesday.
When Malcolm was drafted at Pittsburgh’s Consol Energy Center, P.K. went to the Bruins table to congratulate Boston management on their selection.
Bruins fans, who loathe P.K. with every breath in their bodies, didn’t know whether to cheer, boo or punch themselves in the face.
“I texted him (Sunday), but he’s kind of been giving me the cold shoulder,” P.K. joked before the game of trying to reach Malcolm on the eve of their first meeting.
“I don’t know what they’re telling him over there.”
Malcolm sat on a stool behind the glass in a corridor outside the Bruins dressing room for the first period and 9:09 of the second.
It wasn’t the perfect situation for his NHL debut, the Canadiens having just made it 3-3 on a pretty Max Pacioretty goal that dramatically lifted the building’s energy.
But in came Subban for a short warm-up, the announcement of his name bringing the vowel-heavy catcall from the crowd.
“Boo,” of course, can be heard as “Sooo-ban” if the target so chooses.
“It was great to get the support of the fans,” Subban said with a straight face, praising the “great atmosphere” in the arena.
On the giant scoreboard, he saw the crowd-lifting rocket scored by his brother a few minutes earlier.
“I was aware. I was watching the game,” he said, grinning.
Bruins coach Claude Julien praised the youngster for his control and sense of calm in a building that would have turned on him with a single miss.
“He made the saves look easy because he was well positioned,” Julien said. “He’s shown good signs of matur- ity and poise. Certainly he’s on the right track. I couldn’t have been any happier for him tonight, playing so well against his brother.”
As special a moment as was this Subban Summit, it wasn’t even the first Canadiens-Bruins shooter vs. goalie meeting.
One Dec. 5, 1968, making his first of 886 career NHL starts, Canadiens netminder Tony Esposito faced his Bruins brother, Phil, in a freewheeling game at Boston Garden.
Tony would make 33 saves, beaten twice in the 2-2 tie. As the script would have it, Phil had a team-high five shots and would score both Bruins goals — the first of the game and the equalizer with 10:12 to play.
“My mother gave Phil heck for that,” Tony told me brightly in a talk five years ago, then on his way to Montreal for an Original Six tribute.
Tony had better luck at the Forum not quite three weeks after he first played his brother, earning a shutout — the second of 76 in his career — in a 0-0 result against Boston’s Gerry Cheevers.
And with the Canadiens, it was Esposito’s last against Phil’s Bruins, Tony O left unprotected by the Habs in the NHL’s intraleague draft of June 1969.
Chicago would claim him for $30,000, and in Esposito’s first year with his new team he would win the Calder and Vezina trophies as the league’s outstanding rookie and best goaltender while earning a modern-era record 15 shutouts.
More than four decades after one Esposito was taking shots on another on Montreal ice, Malcolm Subban dove into a cauldron here and didn’t just survive — he thrived.
For now, the kid has family bragging rights.
And he vowed, for public consumption but with a hint of a smile, that he won’t use them.