Montreal Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki went from candidate to be a healthy scratch to Team Canada's savior in the space of 24 hours, and he's now reaping the benefits of his fantastic play.
Before Team Canada played its quarterfinal game against Czechia, many fans and pundits believed that Montreal Canadiens’ captain Nick Suzuki could be a healthy scratch for the game. Fast forward 24 hours, and the discourse has completely changed. When the Habs’ captain rescued Canada in its hour of need, the Montreal market wasn’t surprised, but the rest of the league was.
Since Suzuki scored that all-important goal to keep Canada alive, the praises have rained on the Canadiens’ captain from left, right, and center. The pundits who commented weren’t labelled as “homers” anymore, because they’re not from the Montreal market, and players who were once heated rivals and are now teammates also had a lot to say.
Brad Marchand, who was once a member of the Boston Bruins and involved in an intense rivalry with the Canadiens, said:
That was an elite play…He’s been having a great tournament through our eyes, regardless of what the outside says…He’s a big-time player, he’s shown that his whole career, and he showed that again tonight.
He called the sequence an elite play and added that the forecheck and the battle, which allowed for fresh Canadian legs to get on the ice, are the kind of things Suzuki has done all tournament long, but it’s gone unnoticed because people only notice points. As for tournament point leader Connor McDavid, he said:
That’s a huge goal by Zuk.
One player who wasn’t surprised by the turn of events must have been Brendan Gallagher, who spoke about Suzuki in these terms on Tuesday as RDS’ Eric Leblanc reported:
They’re going to start playing more important games, and that’s where we’ll see Nick at his best. Right now, he’s playing very well; he’s doing exactly what’s asked of him. They have special players who score goals. Nick can do so many things: win faceoffs, kill penalties, and be tough to play against. In the tournament’s next phase, people will start to realize just how important a player he is.
The way Suzuki got the game-tying goal on Wednesday made Gallagher look like a distant relative of Nostradamus, because it wasn’t just the fact that he scored it, but it was everything he had to do for it to become a reality. Push through the end of shift fatigue, play hard on the forecheck, pass the puck to a fresh teammate and then have the presence of mind to get himself in position to give Devon Toews a target to shoot at for the tip, before doing that, just right.
Suzuki did exactly what Martin St-Louis means when he says that sometimes, you must do things that aren’t fun to do to get to do the fun things eventually. Pushing through the fatigue and going on the forecheck certainly wasn’t fun, but getting to score the most important goal of his career so far most definitely was.
Insider Elliotte Friedman was one of those who suggested before the game that Suzuki could be coming out of the lineup, but after the quarterfinal, he said:
I won’t just give him flowers; I’ll give him 10 bouquets because he made one of the biggest plays of the tournament. He hadn’t been playing great, and I think some of us wondered, and I admit I was one of them, if, when Brad Marchand came back into the lineup, Suzuki might be a scratch. But you’re right, like he made a play, it would have been easy for him to peel off and go back to the bench and wait for somebody else. But he made a dogged, determined play, and the hand-eye coordination on the tip was incredible. Great players make great plays at critical times, and Nick Suzuki proved he was a great player. And you know what, Ariel? Nobody is going to be saying he deserves to come out of the lineup anymore. That’s over.
As for panellist and former NHLer Kevin Bieska, he highlighted how big a role Suzuki played after Team Canada lost its captain:
How many people had Nick Suzuki out of the Team Canada lineup for today’s game? He ended up playing every three shifts after Sidney Crosby went down and scored a big goal.
But coach Jon Cooper probably said it best when he explained:
I thought Nick got better as the game went on. He had to play a big role when Sid went out…You can tell he was just buzzing. He started feeling it…It was big time.
Then, speaking to The Athletic, he added:
Like I told you, he’s a Swiss army knife, he can play with anybody, and I thought he elevated his game, and when our country needed a goal, Nick Suzuki answered, and good for him.
As for the man himself, as humble as ever, he credited his coach for the way he made that play:
It’s kind of something that Marty (St. Louis) always talks about. If you’re by yourself, linemates are changing, maybe just try to get it in, forecheck by yourself and buy yourself some time for fresh guys to get out there, and I was able to do that.
The experience Suzuki gained in that game, filling in for Crosby, was absolutely priceless and even more so in a do-or-die game with stakes as high as they can ever be. When the Canadiens get to the playoffs, and he’s playing in a do-or-die game with plenty of pressure, he’ll be able to think back to that moment, when he was successful and on the grandest stage of them all, carrying the hopes of a nation on his shoulders. It will have done wonders for his confidence, not only for scoring that all-important goal but also for receiving the praise that has been raining down on him since then.
You can’t manufacture that kind of moment; you have to be there to live them when they happen. This is a prime example of why it would have been great for Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson to have made Team USA. When the Americans were looking for a goal in overtime against Sweden, it was Quinn Hughes who got to live that moment. Hopefully, one day in the not-so-distant future, it will be Hutson or Caufield, or both, linking up, who knows.
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