– No, PK Subban should not be the captain of the Canadiens.

The Habs named Max Pacioretty as their new captain, and it’s not a bad choice, and certainly the right one if you want to keep firm control of your team, from a coaching standpoint.  As in micromanaging.  Pacioretty won’t give you the pushback Subban might.

Subban is a good hockey player. He is charismatic.  He does good things off the ice as well.  But he has a chip on his shoulder that puts him in Dion Phaneuf territory. He doesn’t know when to dial it back, and that’s an issue. For all his skill – and he is often the best defenseman on the ice on any given night – he still plays like a punk. Phaneuf needs that punk edge. He has size and hands, but isn’t the skilled D-man he was promoted as. Subban doesn’t. He doesn’t need to agitate all the time. He doesn’t need to show he’s tough at every moment. He doesn’t need to because he’s that good.

But being a punk is not the attribute a leader needs. And not a leader of a storied and proud franchise like the Canadiens.

– Yesterday, I wrote about the Avalanche mandating foot guards, plastic protectors that strap over their feet. Nothing to add today, just a reminder it’s there.

– I totally forgot Shawn Horcoff was with the Ducks. Thanks, Kukla’s Korner.

– BTW, I’ve been a regular reader of Kukla’s Korner for as long as I’ve been a blogger (9 years and counting). Even though I have many of the sources he quotes and culls in my RSS feed, it’s one of the first places I turn every morning. Hockey blogs have come and gone, small ones and big ones. I tend to get finicky when it comes to the blogs I read, and have a very short Queen of Hearts “Off with their heads” approach when a site annoys me. Kukla’s mostly doesn’t, and that’s high praise. Give him a look if you haven’t before.

– Joshua Ho-Sang was sent back to the juniors after committing a very serious offense: he was late. Because he didn’t set an alarm. Via Newsday:

Ho-Sang said he believed it was fitting for the Isles to cut him from camp after being late and that it was like a punishment for doing badly at any job. The message would be sent more clear to him by cutting him, he said. He hadn’t set an alarm the entire week prior to oversleeping for the team shuttle and that he had relied on a front desk call or roommate to wake him up.

“Neither of that happened [Friday],” Ho-Sang said. “At the end of the day, it would have been avoided if I set an alarm . . . I should probably start doing that.”

You think? When I was on tour and doing one-week stops, I used to set five alarms on early days: hotel alarm clock, wake up call, two alarms on my battery-powered alarm clock I traveled with, and my phone (ye olde-tyme Nokia, practically needed a hand crank).

I come from the theater world, and in theater, they don’t do late. Sure, things happen, but oversleeping is not a thing that “happens.” It’s something you do, and you don’t do it again. Things have to happen on time because someone is paying the bills, and there is going to be a show at 7:30pm regardless. People paid money to see an event and they aren’t going home because you can’t get there on time.

Sound familiar?  Like a hockey game?

My old boss had a saying: “Hammers in the air.” That meant that at 5:59, you had your hammer ready to strike that nail, and at 6:00, you struck that nail and got to work. Honest pay for an honest day.

Hockey pays quite a bit more than my old job did, and more than a lot of jobs out there, all to play a game. Yes, it’s hard work, but it’s also an opportunity to do something most people would never get to do. It’s a privilege that comes from hard work.

Joshua Ho-Sang was passed over by a lot of people, written off at the draft, and the Islanders took a chance on him. They saw what everyone else saw, a talented guy who can’t get his stuff together, and thought they could manage that. Maybe, the Ho-Sang will finally realize how much of a real opportunity he was given.

I saw Ho-Sang play in Calgary in August, at the Junior Hockey Showcase in Calgary, AB. He was impressive among the juniors. He played like a man compared to the boys he was skating with. Now let’s see if he can act like one.

– I redesigned The Avs Hockey Podcast site over the weekend. It’s now mobile responsive, and has a few widgets and thingies scattered around. Check it out. Jay also put up a post with pretty photos of his new Landeskog jersey and of that jersey on the ice.