Hall to Stamkos to Subban: 110 minutes that shook a country

If every off-season in pro sports’ world of compressed timelines affords the opportunity for a revolution, then this was 110 Minutes That Shook if not the World, then certainly a country:

Taylor Hall, among the saviours of an Oilers franchise on the lottery treadmill for 10 years now, sent to the New Jersey Devils.

Steve Stamkos, the prize of this summer’s free agent millionaires, putting a quick end to the prevailing narrative that had him coming home to Toronto by re-signing in Tampa.

And perhaps above all, P.K. Subban, the flamboyant maestro of the Montreal blueline -- dealt to Nashville, of all places.

Bang. Bang. Bang. And when the echo died away, the chance to redraw the lines had been taken and at least in the case of the three Canadian teams touched upon, lost irrevocably, predictably. Such a talent deficit was not quite as momentous or teary as Pocklington selling Gretzky, but in sum these moves to start this year’s free agency renewal -- and throw the most deepest shade on it -- stand as another point along that same continuum. It’s a uniquely Canadian line, too, born out of the kind of conservative streak that serve as a kind of brake, as in insulating us from the worst effects of the ’08 financial crisis, and making superstars out of the likes of Tiger Williams and Tie Domi.

There are no doubt some hockey reasons that the hockey men of each Canadian club will trot out in justification. But the collective loss is palpable, after a season in which no Canadian franchise made the NHL playoffs and thus extended to 23 years the country’s Stanley Cup drought, no move cries “scapegoat” more than Montreal’s trade of Subban for Shea Weber, a big B.C.-bred D-man who in some ways is his antithesis, preferring to let his game do the talking.

In Montreal, Subban was more than that: he was The Man. And hockey men hate The Man. Incandescent individual talent is one thing that Subban definitely has. But reaching out beyond the hockey world to embrace the kind of celebrity Subban did, with his $10 million gift to the Montreal Childrens’ Hospital, his glib tongue, and his eagerness to go beyond hockey’s stoic template, did not mean enough for him to escape banishment.

Perhaps it merely demanded it. The team’s nomination for the King Clancy Award for leadership went to Max Pacioretti. And when the Canadiens took John Scott off the Coyotes’ gloved hands, right in the middle of Scott’s remarkable and unsolicited ascent to the All-Star Game limelight, they promptly moved him to minor-league St. John’s.

Somewhere, Gary Bettman must be shaking his head. If a talent like Subban’s is not going to be in Montreal, then surely he belongs under the bright lights of a New York or an L.A. Instead, he’s off to an outpost where spring football practices are a bigger story than the Predators’ playoff fortunes.

As for Stamkos, the Leafs’ interest was signalled all season long via Toronto’s voracious hockey media. Steve Simmons, the Toronto Sun’s veteran sportswriter, tweeted earlier Tuesday of Stamkos’ meeting with MLSE brass in Toronto the day before, with Toronto mayor John Tory and the Canadian Tire CEO along to turn up the love.

Stamkos ran the other way, which is no surprise given the arc of another of the established Toronto narratives. Phil Kessel, the last Leaf with some flair, was traded away just ahead of a tarring and feathering -- and was last seen this spring raising the Stanley Cup in a Pittsburgh uniform. Earlier MLSE iterations turned down chances to sign Pavel Bure and even the Great One himself, thus displaying the organization’s Conn Smythe DNA. It’s still there under Lou Lamoriello, that focus on work ethic and thrift and the name on the front of the shirt.

As for Taylor Hall, all he’s done in four seasons in Edmonton is average nearly a point a game on a bad team, the Oilers’ leading scorer over that period. Adam Larsson coming the other way fills a position of need and thus fulfils the same prevailing team-first ethos of the league that Lamoriello favours in Toronto -- ironically, it was Lamoriello when he was in New Jersey who drafted Larsson -- but proven scorers like Hall are sports’ most precious commodity. The Oilers’ new Rexall Place is due to open this fall, minus a little firepower.

Bang. Bang. Bang. At least in Canada, to turn over the words of the late great Gil Scott-Heron, the revolution won’t be televised.

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