Could We See P.K. Subban Come Out of Retirement?

It was surprising to see P.K. Subban announce his retirement from the NHL on Tuesday morning.

While his career wasn’t what it was when he won the Norris Trophy with the Montreal Canadiens, he was still a serviceable veteran who could have provided stability to a team’s blue line, especially on an affordable contract.

Maybe Subban carried too high of a price tag after coming off a contract with a $9 million average annual value.

At only 33 years old, Subban still has a lot of hockey left in his tank. He was pretty durable through his career, only playing less than 70 games in a full NHL season of 82 games three times. A 20-game stint on the IR back in 2018 with the Nashville Predators was his only major injury of note.

His relatively young age, plus low injury concerns, brings up the question: Could Subban come out of retirement if the right opportunity presents itself?

Could P.K. Subban make an NHL comeback?

There are plenty of noteworthy examples of hockey players coming out of retirement. Most famous is Gordie Howe, who joined the WHA years after his NHL retirement and eventually rejoined the NHL when his team, the Hartford Whalers, merged with the NHL.

The WHA provided an avenue for the aging Howe to return, plus he had the motivation of playing with his own sons. Subban doesn’t have either of those circumstances.

Guy LaFleur came out of retirement after he had been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame to suit up with the New York Rangers. Mario Lemieux came out of retirement to buy, play for, and pretty much save the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise.

More recently, there are the examples of Teemu Selanne and Mike Fisher. Selanne contemplated retirement after his Stanley Cup-winning season with the Anaheim Ducks in 2007 but ended up returning mid-season in 2008.

Mike Fisher retired after captaining the Nashville Predators to the 2017 Stanley Cup final. Just like Selanne, he returned mid-way through the next season. Unlike Selanne, he actually “retired”, and not just sat out the game.

Unlike Selanne and Fisher, Subban has a pretty lucrative post-playing career all set up for him. Subban has long “experimented,” for lack of a better word, as an analyst and hockey personality, and it’s all but obvious that’s where he would end up as soon as he hangs up the skates.

He even got an audition as a hockey analyst with ESPN during their playoff coverage.

Just like Subban, another athlete who was certain to go into media after he retired was NFL football player Rob Gronkowski. Gronk, as he’s affectionately called, retired from the New England Patriots at a relatively young age and immediately dove into being a media personality.

That’s just what we expect Subban to do. Another fun fact, Gronk and Subban are the same age!

Here’s where it gets interesting. Even after seemingly having his post-football career off and running, Gronk comes out of retirement to follow his old friend Tom Brady to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Gronk retired again this season, but a good amount of people expect him to make a second comeback. He and Brady have joked about Gronk’s un-retirement and continue to joke about the possibility of another return.

So, let’s say a cup contender is down a few defensemen and decides it could use Subban’s still nice shot at the blue line?

At that point, a comeback would resemble more of Martin Brodeur’s short seven-game stay with the St. Luis Blues instead of Gordie Howe’s epic return, but would Subban consider it? He’s got age on his side, unlike Mike fisher a few short seasons ago.

Expect to see Subban on your television screens sooner rather than later. If sports networks like ESPN, TNT, or TSN don’t scoop him up, then maybe the league will give him the keys to the NHL Network studios.

If a team comes calling, maybe he’ll trade in that microphone for his skates once again.