Who passes more? Who shoots more? Who dekes more? This post focuses on each player's play preference when in possession of the puck in the offensive-zone, and on the powerplay.

P.K. Subban stopped by the Fan 590 in Toronto on Wednesday. During the 27 minute segment, the Canadiens RFA defenseman promoted Hyundai Hockey Helpers, which benefits KidsSport and getting kids in the rink.. Subban also shared a few other bits of info, including burgers, contract negotiations and some theme song ideas. P.K., brother and Bruins prospect Malcolm Subban and their father Karl also hit the TV screen as guests of CP24 Breakfast. Subban on his concerns for the fans, in the event of a lockout.

The Montreal Canadiens have added another recently retired NHL player to their growing player evaluation staff as multiple Stanley Cup winner and lauded shut down center John Madden has been hired as a scout. Madden's responsibilities will be to scout free agent players at the US collegiate level, an area the Canadiens haven't made many splashes in recent years. In other news around the league, Gabriel Landeskog has been named the captain of the Colorado Avalanche, and at 19 years and 286 days, he becomes the youngest team captain in NHL history.

Who's more likely to pass? Who's more likely to dump the puck in? Who's more likely to deke? Continuing with the process of breaking down each Montreal Canadiens player's performance, this post will focus on each player's tendency when in possession of the puck in the NEUTRAL-ZONE.

Who's more likely to pass? Who's more likely to shoot? Who's more likely to deke? Continuing with the process of breaking down each Montreal Canadiens player's performance in the offensive-zone. This post will focus on each player's tendency when in possession of the puck in the offensive-zone.

Best line in Lance Hornby's report. "Bettman and union executive director Donald Fehr couldn't even agree on who decided to end the talks Friday, Bettman insisting he was free to chat and Fehr offering to talk about minor CBA points." Coming Soon: "Bulldogs and Nailers Eyes on The Prize"

Quantifying offensive-zone successes, and tendencies As I wrote here, the act of completing more than 60 offensive-zone passes (as a team) in one game had a substantial impact on the Montreal Canadiens ability to win games. The Habs won/loss record in games where they completed over 60 total offensive-zone passes (at even-strength) was 15-17. This gave them a winning percentage of .469; well above their overall 2011-12 winning percentage of .378.

Nice feature from NHL.com on P.K. Subban's off-season diet and training. He doesn't have an NHL contract and a lockout is imminent, but Subban is looking to be in the best shape of his career when and if things come together in 2012-13. David Desharnais is confident there will be a season.

Sometimes someone in the stat community comes out with something that should be so obvious, it's right in front of your face, but no one has done it before. This is what Eric T from our SB Nation sister site Broad Street Hockey as well as the new NHL Numbers blog has done. What you see in this image is a usage chart of Montreal Canadiens forwards, separated by quality of competition based on the ice time of the opponents each player faces. The really excellent thing about it is that he's separated the forwards a player faces from the defensemen. I'll let Eric explain his methodology by linking his original piece, while you can also check out the usage charts Eric posted today for all 30 teams here. One of the things that stood out to me was how much better this makes the top line from last year look. Desharnais faced tougher competition that Toronto's Mikhail Grabovski for example. However the most impressive thing to me was how tightly Pacioretty and Cole were checked. Any reservations we had about Max Pacioretty being able to handle tough minutes can likely be put to rest.

The Montreal Canadiens finished the 2011-12 season with the 18th-best goals for/against ratio at even-strength. In fact, they were a "plus" even-strength team through much of the first-half. The team absolutely struggled on the powerplay; ending the year with the 28th ranked powerplay, after treading water at 29th and 30th much of the season. Thankfully, the penalty-killing held the fort; finishing second in the league with a success-rate of 88.6%. Communicating the results is easy. The challenge becomes figuring out what produced those results, and what impact those events had on the win/loss column