TORONTO — P.K. Subban is widely regarded as one of the most entertaining players in the NHL, and he has the Twitter followers to prove it.
The Nashville Predators defenceman passed one million Twitter followers, the only active Canadian NHL player at that level according to the social media website.
To put that into perspective, Edmonton Oilers captain and reigning NHL MVP Connor McDavid had around 268,000 followers as of Thursday, while rookie of the year Auston Matthews, who plays in the NHL media fishbowl of Toronto, had around 122,000.
Even the Great One, Wayne Gretzky, has just 143,000 followers.
Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby isn't a factor as he isn't on Twitter.
Possibly the closest Canadian competitor to Subban is Florida Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo, whose popular and often hilarious @Strombone1 account was approaching 750,000 followers as of Thursday.
Subban is a long way from Russian star Alex Ovechkin, who has over 2.5 million Twitter disciples.
Paul Bissonnette, who had a marginal NHL career but became a big presence on social media, was the first Canadian player to pass one million followers.
How does Subban stack up against the top athletes in other sports? Former Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant has over 12 million followers, golfer Tiger Woods is at around 6.25 million, mixed martial arts star Connor McGregor is over 5.3 million and Canadian tennis player Eugenie Bouchard has almost 1.4 million.
The Canadian Press
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version stated Subban was the first Canadian to reach one million Twitter followers, when in fact it was Paul Bissonnette.