Montreal Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki will play in his first Olympic game today when Team Canada takes on Czechia.
After Juraj Slafkovsky stole the show in the first game of the men’s Olympic tournament with a dominant performance for Slovakia against Finland, Montreal Canadiens’ captain Nick Suzuki will be making his debut today when Canada takes on Czechia. While Suzuki initially practiced on a line with Nathan MacKinnon and Brad Marchand, at Wednesday’s practice, Bo Horvat had replaced MacKinnon on his line, which seems to indicate that he’ll be on fourth-line duty.
This should not be seen as a lack of respect for the Canadiens’ centerman. With so many stars on one team, it stands to reason that John Cooper would try to build on what he has seen at the 4 Nations Face-Off and bank on already established chemistry. Besides, this won’t be a fourth line in the traditional sense of the term; they’ll see plenty of action, likely against the opponents’ best lines as well. Having Horvat and Suzuki on the same line also gives you two centermen options on the same line, crucial for those big faceoff missions.
Suzuki was also on one of the three forward pairs that took some repetition on the penalty kill. Horvat and Brendan Hagel seem destined to be the top pair on the PK, followed by Mitch Marner and Mark Stone, and Suzuki and Marchand being the third option. They will likely be the solution if one of the other penalty killers has to go to the box.
As for the power play, Suzuki did not feature on the units that took some reps yesterday. The first unit featured Sam Reinhart, MacKinnon, Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, and Cale Makar, while the second included Stone, Horvat, Macklin Celebrini, Shea Theodore, and Marner. Again, Cooper is planning to rely on what has worked in the past, and since Suzuki wasn’t there then, it’s not surprising that he’s not there.
As for Canada’s opponent, Czechia, it features 13 NHLers: Radek Faksa, Tomas Hertl, David Kampf, Ondrej Kase, Martin Necas, Ondrej Palat, David Pastrnak, Radko Gudas, Filip Hronek, David Spacek, Lukas Dostal, Karel Vejmelka, and Dan Vladar.
There’s a lot of firepower there, and Canada would do well not to take them lightly. Slovakia showed yesterday that anything can happen when you get on the ice, beating Finland 4-1 in the first game. The Czechs have been a thorn in Canada’s side in the last few World Junior Championships, but the Canadians did defeat them in the bronze medal game at PyeongChang in 2018, without NHL players. In net Cooper is going with the goalie who won him the 4 Nations with Jordan Binnington while Czechia will trust Lukas Dostal.
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