In 2016, in a trade that rocked the hockey world, the Nashville Predators sent Shea Weber to the Montreal Canadiens for P.K. Subban. Two days after that, when the free agency period opened, they signed fellow right-handed defender Yannick Weber. Tactfully, Yannick Weber immediately abandoned his preferred #6 and said he’d wear #7 in gold.
There were, obviously, significant differences between the two Webers: while both had made their home countries’ Olympics teams, Shea was on a stacked Team Canada roster and Yannick played for Switzerland; while both had previous experience playing with Roman Josi, Shea had done it for years in the NHL and, international experience aside, Yannick would not be seeing top-four icetime on a team with more depth than the Swiss men’s.