There’s no denying that Nick Suzuki is doing admirable work this season. The Montreal Canadiens captain leads the team in points with 19, and he’s on pace for 111 points on the season. What’s even more impressive, though, is his defensive work.
Suzuki has always been a responsible forward, a player who took care of both sides of the puck, but this season, he’s taking it to a whole new level. He’s got a plus-2.3 Defensive Rating, which leads all forwards as reported by Dom Luszczyszyn in a recent article in The Athletic. He also adds that the Canadiens are giving up 1.85 xGA and 0.92 GA per 60 when the captain is on the ice.
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Unfortunately for the captain, Luszczyszyn also reports that there is a snag in his Selke Trophy bid: he averages only 19 seconds of penalty kill per game. That’s hardly surprising since Martin St-Louis is trying his best not to use the center on the PK this season, preferring to keep him fresh for even-strength and power-play minutes. Still, when Jake Evans, Josh Anderson, Alex Newhook or Oliver Kapanen are in the box, Suzuki fills in,
Luszczyszyn reports that since the salary cap was implemented, only three Selke finalists have averaged less than a minute of penalty kill per game, and only one of them won. Pavel Datsyuk was the sole winner in 2009-10 (41 seconds). Datsyuk was a finalist in 2010-11 (40 seconds) when Ryan Kessler won it, and Auston Matthews was also a finalist in 2023-24 (43 seconds) when Aleksander Barkov won it.
Suzuki has proven in his career that he can play on the penalty kill. In 2021-22, he spent over 123 minutes on the ice shorthanded. In 2022-23, he spent over 135 minutes on the ice when down a man. For the last three seasons, his penalty killing time has gone down, not because he wasn’t a good penalty killer, but because he became an increasingly important forward in the Canadiens’ attack, going from 61 points to 66 to 77 and finally to 89 this past season.
While Luszczyszyn is right that winning the Selke while spending less than a minute on the penalty kill would be an exception to the rule, I feel it wouldn’t be a shock if Suzuki became that exception. The professional hockey writers' association members vote for the trophies, and they are well aware of how the Canadiens’ captain’s career has evolved.
If Suzuki were asked about the possibility of not winning the Selke because of a lack of Shorthanded time on ice, he would laugh it off and reply that what he needs is wins that count in the standings to make the playoffs, not individual honours.
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