P.K. Subban is filling his post-playing calendar with the same pace he brought to the blue line. The former Montreal Canadiens defenseman, now an ESPN analyst, is stepping into two CBC productions while continuing the work of his foundation and keeping a close eye on a Canadiens club he believes has moved from promising to legitimately competitive.
Key takeaways
- Subban will star in and serve as executive producer of “Screech Owls,” a 26-episode animated CBC series scheduled for 2027.
- He is also an executive producer of “Junior,” an eight-part drama about a Black player chasing an NHL opportunity.
- His $10 million commitment to Montreal Children’s Hospital was completed in May and has helped roughly 100,000 children.
- Subban sees Montreal as a potential playoff contender if its speed is paired with a committed defensive identity.
- He called the Winnipeg Jets his early-season surprise despite Connor Hellebuyck’s absence from the lineup.
From the studio to the production room
The 37-year-old Subban played 13 NHL seasons from 2010-22 with the Canadiens, Nashville Predators and New Jersey Devils, winning the Norris Trophy in 2013. He has since become a familiar face on ESPN’s NHL coverage, but television analysis is only one lane in an increasingly broad workload.
On Oct. 6, CBC announced “Screech Owls,” an animated adaptation of Roy MacGregor’s youth hockey mystery books. The project will consist of 26 shorts, each running 11 minutes, and Subban is both starring in it and serving as executive producer. MacGregor’s book series ran from 1995 through 2015.
Subban said the project came back onto his radar after his agent mentioned it before the pandemic. When he saw MacGregor’s name attached, he remembered reading the books while growing up.
He sees the series as more than a hockey cartoon. Subban wants it to encourage imagination while bringing young viewers into sports, technology and learning. He said children spend plenty of time on phones and tablets, and that anything created for them should leave them with something worthwhile. He has already begun voice-over work and believes the show can connect with adults as well as younger fans.
His other CBC project, “Junior,” is also expected in 2027. The eight-hour series follows Black hockey player Marcus Hill as he pursues an NHL path, drawing inspiration from Subban’s own climb from junior hockey to the League.
Subban described a tightly scheduled routine that begins at 5:45 a.m. most days. He trains six times a week, walks between 20,000 and 30,000 steps each morning, stretches, watches hockey during an hour-long Epsom salt bath, then moves through production calls, meetings and ESPN preparation. His evenings are generally reserved for games, except when studio duties take him to Bristol, Connecticut.
He said he typically wraps his daytime work around 4 or 4:30 p.m., eats a prepared meal and gets ready for that night’s slate. Salmon and vegetables are staples, and he said he goes through 22 pounds of tomatoes in a week. Without the demands of NHL travel, Subban feels he has established a more regular sleep schedule and may be in better condition than he was during his playing days.
Behind those projects is what he calls PKSS Management, a venture he describes as a start-up that has effectively been growing for two decades. The driving idea, he said, is to use media, entertainment and former players’ platforms to widen hockey’s audience.
Subban believes the sport is reaching people beyond its traditional Canadian and American base, including families whose roots are elsewhere. He sees player-driven projects and television coverage as ways to explain the game, introduce personalities and make hockey more accessible. He also believes today’s players have a clearer picture of opportunities available after retirement, with figures such as Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky providing examples in broadcasting.
That purpose also runs through the P.K. Subban Foundation. His 2015 promise to help raise $10 million for Montreal Children’s Hospital was fulfilled in May. The hospital called it the largest philanthropic pledge made by a professional athlete in Canada, and the funding has supported about 100,000 children.
Subban’s read on Montreal, Hutson and the early NHL board
Subban’s old club made a three-round playoff run last season, and he believes the Canadiens can no longer afford to frame success as something for a future year. In his view, the League changes too quickly for teams to wait on a long development timeline once they are capable of competing.
He likes Montreal’s quickness, its ability to close plays defensively and the way it can turn a check into an immediate rush the other way. But Subban said the Canadiens’ ceiling will depend on their discipline without the puck.
Martin St. Louis, he said, is the right coach for the group. Montreal has talent, speed and more size than it once did, though Subban would still like to see the club become bigger and stronger through the middle. He compared the current roster’s challenge to the teams he played on in Montreal, which needed a blend of skill, size and committed checking to win.
He pointed to defense as the area that can make life easier across the lineup, especially for the goaltenders. Subban said he is not concerned about Lane Hutson making mistakes because he expects the young defenseman to compete in his own zone. If the entire roster carries that same urgency, he said, Montreal should cut down on Grade-A looks against and give Jakub Dobes and the rest of the crease group a cleaner night.
Hutson, the 2024-25 Calder Trophy winner, has the ability to enter the Norris Trophy discussion, Subban said. He placed the Canadiens defenseman alongside the League’s elite talents in terms of value to his team, mentioning Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes and Rasmus Dahlin.
But Subban noted that Norris voting is competitive and subjective, even for the game’s best defensemen. Makar, for example, has won twice, in 2021-22 and 2024-25, rather than every season over the past five years. For Hutson to win, Subban said, he will need a major regular season that puts him among the top two or three candidates. If that happens, it would likely mean Montreal is having an exceptional year.
Elsewhere, Subban has been impressed by Winnipeg’s 4-2-2 start. The Jets have done it without suspended goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, a three-time Vezina Trophy winner in 2019-20, 2023-24 and 2024-25. Subban said that start reflects both the club’s depth and its coaching.
Asked to look ahead to the Stanley Cup race, Subban admitted he would like to see Montreal make a run. His early list of better-established contenders includes the Washington Capitals, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights. Those teams, he said, are constructed to hold up through an 84-game season and the heavier hockey that follows.
