From the Archive: Shea Weber Took His Trade to Montreal in Stride

Whoa. Wait a minute here. Back up a bit. So you’re punched in the gut with this news, this career-changing event hits you in the middle of a beautiful summer day, and the first thing you do is tarp up your boat, then call your former GM?

Those who know Weber best wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn this. If tarping a boat was what needed to be done at the moment, well, then the lifealtering conversations could wait a couple minutes.

Weber has never been one to shirk his responsibilities, and he wasn’t about to start. A little more than three months later, he would be on the ice at Air Canada Centre in the semifinal of the World Cup, making life absolutely miserable for Alex Ovechkin. It was there that every Ovechkin rush went to die, usually at the end of Weber’s stick. The man who has scored at least 50 goals each of the past three seasons and averages almost five shots a game in the NHL was limited to just one shot. Asked after the game if he relished the assignment coach Mike Babcock gave him – to snuff out one of the most explosive offensive players on the planet – Weber said it wasn’t all that formal. “Nobody said anything,” Weber said. “You just figure out who you’re playing against when you’re out there and do your best. You just accept the challenge and enjoy it. You do what you’re told, or what you’re asked to do.”

This is what hockey people talk about when they refer to a guy playing the game “the right way.” Those three words have become all the rage in the hockey lexicon of late, and Weber embodies them as well as anyone. There’s plenty of room for debate on whether or not the Canadiens lost the trade when they dealt all-world player and entertainer P.K. Subban to Nashville for the Predators’ captain and undisputed leader. Lord knows, social media and analytics made their case clear that the Predators received the better and more dynamic player. That may very well be true, but the Canadiens spent much of the summer trying to change their culture, and you don’t do that any more dramatically than trading P.K. Subban for Shea Weber. It was a good old-fashioned, no-muss-no-fuss, one-for-one player trade. No futures, no prospects, no draft picks. And it could be argued that two men more diametrically opposed as players and personalities have never been traded for each other before. Weber is a hockey player, not a brand. He is four years older than Subban and analytics suggest his career is in decline. But Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin is banking on Weber, who brings people together, making the Canadiens a better team. “Shea exudes professionalism,” said Barry Trotz, Weber’s former coach with the Predators and now the man behind the bench for the Washington Capitals. “Shea exudes what a professional athlete should be on and off the ice. I saw Shea come into Nashville as a young man, and I watched him develop into a great man and a great leader.”

Weber, 31, is a proud man. Like just about every other person who gets to the elite of the elite in his profession, Weber wouldn’t be there if not for a steely resolve and a healthy dose of self-confidence. So as the reviews of the trade poured in during its aftermath, Weber was hardly consumed with any doubt. And there’s a reason for that. It’s basically because he didn’t really listen. It’s all white noise to him. There are plenty of people in this business who claim they don’t read papers or watch sportscasts yet seem to still have an intimate knowledge of what’s being said about them. Weber isn’t one of those people. He pretty much ignored the analysis of the trade. And for him, it was fairly easy. The only time he turned on the television was to watch his beloved Toronto Blue Jays play. Most of the people he spoke to about the trade were excited for him. When asked whether he has a burning desire at all to prove the critics wrong, Weber responded with, “Hmm, I guess you’re kind of telling me what the analysts were saying wasn’t good. That’s fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. It’s not going to change the way I play the game.”

And how does he play the game? Well, let’s start with the fact he’s 6-foot-4 and 236 pounds. That’s a lot of human being, a “man mountain” as he was referred to by Babcock on a day when the Team Canada coach was heaping praise on him prior to the World Cup. The son of a sawmill worker and a hairdresser from Sicamous, B.C. – Weber’s father, James, still cleans the ice and does maintenance at the Sicamous and District Recreation Centre, along with Cal Franson, the father of Buffalo Sabres defenseman, Cody – there are no airs there. What you see is what you get. And that is a player who has the size and strength to keep skill players away from his goaltender. And, make no mistake, Weber is a nasty piece of work sometimes. Remember a couple years ago when Matt Cooke crosschecked him in the face? Yeah, that didn’t work out so well for Cooke. And Weber’s head-smash of Henrik Zetterberg into the glass during the playoffs in 2012 was ugly. One star in the Central Division said over the summer that he was thrilled with the trade, relishing the opportunity to dump the puck into Subban’s corner rather than having to lock horns with Weber. “I don’t think there’s any player in the world like him,” said Nashville’s Pekka Rinne, one of Weber’s closest friends. “If there’s a definition of a true pro,” said Predators left winger Filip Forsberg, “Shea is the definition of it.”

Babcock talked about how Weber is particularly adept at crosschecking opponents in the ribs in front of the net. When asked about it, Weber simply deferred to former NHLer Chris Pronger. “There are two areas of the game that are going to make a difference in games,” Weber said. “Right in front of your net and right in front of their net. You want to get as many bodies and traffic in front of their goalie as you can, and you want to make things easier on your goalie by clearing out the front of the net.”

And then there’s the shot. In Canada’s 2-1 win over Latvia in the Olympic quarterfinal in 2014, Latvian defensemen seemed intent on taking away Weber’s shot by standing in front of it. When it was suggested that perhaps those young men didn’t have access to the NHL’s Center Ice Package, Weber replied by saying, “Yeah, I guess not. I don’t know.” Not a big one for playing along, that Shea Weber. The Canadiens had the 25th-ranked man advantage unit in the league last season – “Obviously, they had some issues on the power play last season.” Ya think? – but the addition of Weber, along with Alexander Radulov, should result in major improvement. Andrei Markov will stand at the top of the umbrella on the power play and feed soft passes to Weber, who will bring down his own version of hell on penalty killers and goaltenders.

So the eye test is looking favorable for Montreal at least in the short-term. The analytics comparison? Uh, it’s kind of a rout. And not in a good way for Weber or the Canadiens. By almost every advanced metric, Subban comes out significantly ahead. And even though Subban loses the puck a lot, he drives possession in a way Weber doesn’t. It’s kind of like the highlight-reel shortstop in baseball who gets to more balls than most and makes so many great plays but still commits a lot of errors. If you’re not carrying the puck, you’re never going to lose it. According to one analytics expert, Subban made almost 600 more plays with the puck than Weber did last season.

Prior to the trade, former Canadiens analytics consultant Matt Pfeffer gave a report to Bergevin basically begging him not to trade Subban for Weber. Later in the summer, Pfeffer referred to Weber in a THN piece as “an average player,” one who “doesn’t push the needle.” He later regretted making his thoughts public, but the word was already out. The analytics community, as a whole, thought this was a very bad trade. There are concerns about foot speed as well. How much longer will Weber be able to keep up with young forwards who seem to need very little ice to blow past defenders? Weber is signed until 2026, just prior to his 41^stbirthday, at a cap hit of $7.9 million per season, a little more than $1 million less than Subban’s cap hit. In real dollars, he’ll cost the Canadiens $12 million each of the next two seasons, and as his contract winds down, the Habs could have a player who carries a huge cap hit.

Weber loves fantasy sports. With his trade to the Canadiens, he’s in three NFL fantasy leagues – one in Montreal, one in Nashville and one with his buddies back home. He and Carey Price share a team on the Canadiens, which lost in Week 1 of the season, prompting Weber to contemplate pulling the trigger on some changes. He’s also a huge fantasy baseball nerd. In other words, Weber is a numbers guy. He can tell you the relative value of a slugger or a wide receiver, but he doesn’t put any stock in what the numbers are saying about him versus Subban, largely because he doesn’t pay attention to hockey analytics. “Half the time I don’t even know how many goals and assists I have,” Weber said. “I check the stats package maybe once a week or once every two weeks.” But he does always know how many points his team has and what place it occupies in the standings. “At the end of the day, even in fantasy, it’s not about the stats,” Weber said. “It’s about production. I’m going to Montreal to help that team win. If the team does well, it’s good for everybody.”

Michael Maguire is one of Weber’s best friends outside of hockey. He lives in a place called Cool Springs, which is just outside Nashville. In the summer of 2014, Weber and Bailey had their first child, a boy they named Beckette Michael Weber. Maguire went around telling everyone he knew that Weber named his firstborn son after him. “Shea said, ‘Let him think that,’ ” said Mike’s mother, Dee. “He didn’t know that Michael is Shea’s middle name. But he just said, ‘Let him think it. It’s OK.’ But that’s the kind of person Shea is. He has a big heart.”

Maguire is a 49-year-old fan of the Predators and has been ever since he and his parents won a door prize of four tickets to a Predators game in 2009. Maguire, who has Down syndrome, went to Predators coach Barry Trotz to thank him for the tickets, and Trotz, whose youngest son, Nolan, also has Down syndrome, told Maguire to go to the will-call window to pick up a bracelet that would get him into the Predators dressing room after the game.

It was that night when Maguire met Weber and Rinne for the first time, and an instant bond was forged. That was the night Weber and Rinne asked Maguire if he’d be their Best Buddy, an international non-profit organization that, among other things, helps create one-onone friendships for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Trotz had been instrumental in helping the organization plant roots in Tennessee and recruited Dan Hamhuis to become the first Best Buddy on the Predators. Not long afterward, Weber and Rinne started a friendship with Maguire that now runs deeply and has real meaning. This is much more than two guys being good teammates or company men. They went far and beyond their obligations, seeing Maguire often after games and taking him on bowling and baseball game outings. “Shea has been a blessing in our lives,” Dee said. “Michael responds to people who are nice to him and friendly to him and want to do things with him. As Michael got older, he didn’t have a lot of friends his age. So when Shea and Pekka were wanting to be his friend and do things with him, well, Michael thought he was just in heaven with those guys.”

There’s an uneasiness about Weber when asked about it. He doesn’t do these things to get his name in the newspapers, though sometimes it’s unavoidable. He won’t mention, either, that he and Rinne were part of the driving force behind 365 Pediatric Cancer Fund, which raises funds for the Predators Foundation to donate to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. As with his work on the ice, Weber prefers to do things like this quietly. That’s not a shot at Subban, whose philanthropic work and pledge to raise $10 million for the Montreal Children’s Hospital are well known. It’s just different.

Weber will allow himself to speak a little about this, but it’s clear he’s not terribly comfortable. “Mike’s a great guy. He’s easy to love,” Weber said. “He’ll be part of my life for the rest of it. He’s a special man, and I’ve been fortunate to have gotten to know him.”

Weber jokes that, “ ‘Peks’ is going to have his hands full taking care of him himself,” but you can also tell that there are some real feelings of love and admira tion there. Maguire has had his share of setbacks of late. His father died last Mother’s Day, and in August he had to undergo spinal surgery to alleviate unbearable pain. Dee said her son was determined to walk as soon after the surgery as possible so he would be fit enough to go to the Predators games this season. “I don’t think Michael understands that when we go to the games – if we go to the games – Shea is not going to be there,” she said. “We keep telling him that Shea has been transferred to another team in Canada, and I don’t know if he gets it that he won’t be in Nashville. Hopefully, he’ll keep in contact, so Michael doesn’t feel like he’s lost him forever. So far he has.”

When a player on the same baseball team as Dee’s son was diagnosed with cancer, Weber showed up to visit with all kinds of Predators swag in toe. One year, he and Rinne attended Maguire’s birthday party at a restaurant called Logan’s Roadhouse, the kind of place where you leave peanut shells all over the floor. Dee was horrified that Weber and Rinne would have to put up with the mess, but they were more than happy to come. They gave Maguire a Predators watch for his birthday. “They were totally devoted to Michael,” Dee said. “Then they tried to pay for it, but my husband had already made arrangements. He said to Shea, ‘You might be faster than me on the ice, but not here.’ ”

Weber’s desire to do the right thing has never surprised Trotz because that’s what Weber is all about. Trotz watched him develop into a true leader of men, both on and off the ice, and credits Weber’s relationship with Maguire as one of the key components in that process. When a young man begins to realize it’s about more than just himself, something special begins to happen. He becomes a better leader because he puts the needs of others ahead of his own.

Weber has always been a low-maintenance player. The only time his energy drains is when things aren’t going well and he occasionally turns inward. His words are few, but each carries an enormous amount of weight. If he sees a teammate going astray or doing something wrong, he’s far more likely to quietly pull him aside than call him out in front of his teammates. “When you get pulled aside by ‘Webs,’ everyone gets it,” Trotz said. “He’s a huge part of the culture we created in Nashville. Any guy who has ever played with Webs, I don’t think there’s a guy who would say he’s not all in.”

Weber spent all of 10 days in Montreal this past summer. Or it might have been nine. He’s not sure. Much of that was consumed with finding a place to live and acclimatizing himself and his family to the Brassard area where the Canadiens have their practice rink. He got through Grade 11 French and has used almost none of it in the 15 years since. Like a lot of Anglophones who know French, he tends to translate what he hears word for word, and once the conversation gets going, he falls hopelessly behind and gets tangled up.

That’s just one challenge Weber faces. This will be a whole new world for him. If there is anyone better equipped for the challenge, Trotz can’t think of him. “I think he has more tools in his toolbox than ever before, and I think he’s more confident in himself as a player than ever before,” he said. “There’s a reason why he’s won gold medals and there’s a reason he’s on (Team Canada in the World Cup). I just think he’s in a really good place right now.”

We will find out just how good it is before long. There’s no doubt the Canadiens wanted a new look this season, both on the ice and in their team dynamic. Weber is a huge part of that. So is two-time Stanley Cup winner Andrew Shaw. Having the World Cup-level Price back this season could make the Canadiens a legitimate Stanley Cup contender again. And who knows, perhaps playing in a place so high profile and with such scrutiny will bring out the best in Weber. He and Price skated together this summer, so there’s some familiarity there.

The first time Weber put on his Canadiens gear and took a look down, it was strange to see the red, white and blue. He’s not going to lie. But as he said, you just go out and do what you’re told. “I’m excited to embark on this new adventure, journey, chapter in my life, whatever you want to call it,” Weber said. “It’s going to be interesting and fun to live the other side of it.”