Selected by the Montreal Canadiens in the second round (No. 43) of the 2007 NHL Draft, Subban played four seasons for Belleville of the Ontario Hockey League and helped Canada win the 2008 IIHF World Junior Championship.
He tied for the scoring lead among defensemen at the 2009 World Junior Championship with nine points and was a tournament-best plus-12 for Canada, which won the event again.
Subban joined Hamilton of the American Hockey League for the 2009-10 season and was third in the league among defenseman with 53 points (18 goals, 35 assists) in 77 games. He was named to the AHL First All-Star Team and the All-Rookie Team.
Subban made his NHL debut with the Canadiens against the Philadelphia Flyers on Feb. 20, 2010 and had an assist. He played in two regular-season games and 14 Stanley Cup Playoff games for Montreal, scoring a goal and eight points in the postseason.
Promoted to the Canadiens full-time in 2010-11, Subban scored 38 points (14 goals, 24 assists) and led Montreal with nine power-play goals. In 2011-12, he led the Canadiens in total ice time on the power play (283:04), total ice time (1,968:28) and average time on ice (24:18). On March 20, 2011, Subban became the first Canadiens rookie defenseman to get a hat trick when he scored three goals against the Minnesota Wild.
Subban won the Norris Trophy as the League's top defenseman and was named to the NHL First All-Star Team in 2012-13, tying for the NHL scoring lead for defensemen (38 points in a 48-game season). Playing all 82 games for the first time in 2013-14, he scored 53 points (10 goals, 43 assists). In 2014-15, he was tied for second among NHL defensemen with 60 points and was second with 45 assists. He also led the Canadiens in average time on ice (26:12) and was named an NHL First-Team All-Star for the second time in three seasons.
After leading the Canadiens in assists (45) and average time on ice (26:22, fifth in the NHL) in 2015-16, Subban was traded to the Nashville Predators for defenseman Shea Weber on June 29, 2016.
In his first season with the Predators, Subban scored 40 points (10 goals, 30 assists) in 66 regular-season games and 12 points (two goals, 10 assists) in 22 postseason games, helping Nashville reach the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since entering the NHL in 1998.
He played all 82 games in 2017-18 and was named to the NHL All-Star Game for the third time, scoring 59 points (16 goals, 43 assists) for the Predators, who won the Presidents' Trophy as the NHL's top regular-season finisher.
Subban scored 31 points (nine goals, 22 assists) in 63 games in 2018-19 and was traded to the Devils on June 22, 2019. He had 18 points (seven goals, 11 assists) in 68 games for New Jersey when the 2019-20 season was paused March 12 due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus.
NOTES & TRANSACTIONS
- OHL First All-Star Team (2009)
- AHL All-Rookie Team (2010)
- AHL First All-Star Team (2010)
- NHL All-Rookie Team (2011)
- NHL First All-Star Team (2013, 2015)
- NHL Second All-Star Team (2018)
- Played in NHL All-Star Game (2016, 2017, 2018)
- Traded to Nashville by Montreal for Shea Weber, June 29, 2016.
- Traded to New Jersey by Nashville for Steven Santini, Jeremy Davies, New Jersey's 2nd-round pick in 2019 NHL Draft and 2nd-round pick in 2020 NHL Draft, June 22, 2019.