Indeed, the Nashville Predators won Game 3 and P.K. Subban, of course, played a pretty big role, part of a four-man unit (with Roman Josi, Mattias Ekholm and Ryan Ellis) that reduced the Pittsburgh Penguins' Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby to a grand total of... zero shots on goal. He got Malkin to lose his cool and Crosby to say something worth Subban distorting it to create a minor controversy.
And that's the thing about Subban: he's as good as the best in the league with his on-ice play. He can hang in there and dominate games like Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns, Duncan Keith, and the Drew Doughty and Dustin Byfuglien types of recent years - but once he's confident that his game preparation is tight enough, he also has that cockiness and edge to try to take some opponents off their game, yet also the leadership to calm his troops down and turn a 2-0 series deficit into a 2-2 tie, by calmly stating facts like "we're nearly unbeatable on home ice", and "we've got a great group of guys", "well coached", "terrific goaltending that's the backbone of this hockey club" all while never giving the Pens any locker room billboard fodder, not even mentioning the Preds had outplayed Pittsburgh in those two games.
The 2017 playoffs have shown and confirmed to the entire world - stubborn media types in particular - that Subban (particularly how he handled Jonathan Toews in the first round, but also his play against the St. Louis Blues and Anaheim Ducks) and Karlsson (who skated circles around the Boston Bruins, New York Rangers and even the Pens most times) are now the complete deal, that their positioning, defensive play and, heck, even hitting game is on par with their offensive prowess. They are on top of the game. The Hockey News even went so far as saying that Karlsson may now be on par with Crosby and Connor McDavid as the best player(s) in the game.
Here's Subban on the dual swatch insert version of card #77 from Upper Deck's 2013-14 Artifacts set:
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