2025-26 Season Spotlight: Nick Suzuki
Selke Season
It’s been 30 years since a 100-point player won the Selke Trophy.
Sitting on 101 points, Habs captain Nick Suzuki appears likely to match Sergei Fedorov’s feat in 2025-26, as he’s built the reputation and delivered the two-way performance required to sway even the most stubborn/clueless of voters.
Here’s how.
Defense
Even though the 26-year-old has never finished higher than 13th in Selke voting, his defense turned the corner two seasons ago, vaulting from mediocre to well above average over that span. He’s eclipsed his pre-draft projections to become one of the league’s most dependable pivots around.
With linemate Cole Caufield beginning to hold his own in the DZ, Suzuki’s efforts are now impossible to ignore:
The most impressive aspect of the center’s game is its continued refinement. The puck support, the coverage reads, the overall balance between offense and defense. There’s almost a Crosby-esque quality to his thirst for perfection.
Each time he returns to camp, he’s leveled up.
While I’ve never loved the Patrice Bergeron comparisons (the Bruins legend cast a much stickier shadow and was an elite PKer, whereas Suzuki is a vastly superior playmaker and more intuitive zone defender who averages 0:42 SHTOI/GP), Suzuki’s development has drawn valid parallels in one department. He thrives as his trio’s F3, keeping a lid on the opposition’s breakout through his positional savvy and underrated wheels (top gear in the 96th percentile):
Whether he’s filling in for pinching D-men or smothering outlet passes in middle ice, he boasts the timing and defensive conscience of textbook 200-foot centers. He floats just high enough in the OZ to play center field while staying close enough to swoop in and outnumber the defense around 50/50 pucks. This tightrope walk is no piece of cake. Many forwards are either allergic to any semblance of risk or so spellbound by the biscuit that they lose their bearings.
His long speed, for its part, shines in backchecking scenarios, as he makes up ground and charts intelligent pursuit angles to cordon off the rink’s most dangerous quadrants.
During his shifts, blueliners can crash down without worry and opponents sputter out of the gate.
And that’s merely the first layer of Suzuki’s defensive presence. When you manage to access the OZ, he helps the Habs wrestle the puck away below the goal line. The puck-carrier’s posture and space inform his decision to double-team them down low without compromising the guts of the ice. Here’s an exemplary display vs. the Sharks:
Noah Dobson (MTL 53) begins this sequence in retrieval, scanning for options while feeling F2 Collin Graf’s (SJ 51) incoming pressure. He needs a target, so Suzuki posts up a few feet away for a potential pop pass. In case the puck squirts loose, his proximity should also prevent San Jose from moving it into good ice.
Graf does well to turn the dish into a giveaway before Dobson pins him to the boards:
The moment Graf claims possession, Suzuki sinks deeper for support and shades toward the crease to safeguard against a quick slot pass.
Time for a posture check. Since Dobson has stapled the Sharks winger to the boards (no range of motion whatsoever), Suzuki has the green light to tip the numbers in Montreal’s favor:
Given Dobson’s outside leverage and Suzuki’s decision to inch inside vs. a vulnerable puck-carrier, Will Smith (SJ 2) is blocked off. The center swipes the puck to Mike Matheson (MTL 8) and shifts his focus to the Habs’ zone exit:
Once again, Smith ends up in no man’s land (between an already-covered Caufield and Matheson), granting the LD room to hit Suzuki in the strong-side dot lane:
Thanks to the center’s instincts, a fumbled retrieval becomes a clean breakout:
Not sexy by any stretch. Precise. Reliable. He’s a seamless extension of Montreal’s matchup pairing, holding Dobson and Matheson’s hands every step of the way to escape a sketchy situation and tilt the ice back toward the Sharks’ cage.
This is the stuff of coach’s dreams.
It speaks to a broader theme too. Regardless of where he’s located on the ice, Suzuki’s recognition of when to engage with his stick is superb. Like an expert ring-cutter, he’ll latch onto his counterpart’s hip and usher them to the wall to shrink their real estate and spike his odds of puck contact. His telescopic vision susses out chances to pounce on his teammate’s marks as well. Turn your back to him for a second, and he’ll make a beeline for the biscuit:
Top-six forwards want defenders to lunge at them. Blink first, and they possess the skill to make you pay. Montreal’s 1C undermines this pattern through his patience and opportunism. You keep waiting on him to attack, yet he only grows aggressive once you no longer have eyes on him or his angling has stacked the deck. He defends on his terms.
Finally, there’s his ace in the hole: hockey IQ.
I hate to bring up boxing again—not really—but there’s an old adage that suggests you need to master the fundamentals before you can start breaking from them. That’s why high-caliber pros abandon “correct” technique (e.g. guard down, circling toward the opponent’s rear hand, lead foot inside) from time to time. They’re such practiced fighters that they know what they can get away with and what might trick their foes.
Suzuki is a similarly educated defender who’ll ditch the textbook every now and then to gain the upper hand:
Winnipeg attempts to run a rub route vs. the Habs’ high man-to-man coverage. However, Mark Scheifele (WPG 55) drops the puck well before Suzuki is committed, allowing Montreal’s center to swap his responsibility (trailing Scheifele) for Matheson’s (Kyle Connor, WPG 81). The Jets’ scissor action therefore goes nowhere fast.
One of the most common mistakes in rush defense is allocating too many bodies to the puck. Suzuki pretends to commit that mistake (watch his route) in hopes of baiting an east-west pass from Patrick Kane (DET 88). The winger obliges, and Suzuki peels off at the last second to defuse the danger.
Another example of his high-man craftiness. Although Andrew Peeke (BOS 26) is his mark, he doesn’t believe Boston would run the risk of a return feed near the congested blue line, so he shifts his stick leverage to the inside to consume as much ice as possible. An unwitting Nikita Zadorov (BOS 91) whips the puck right onto his blade.
Suzuki prevails on the strength of an odd brew: rigorous discipline and hair-trigger whims. He follows the script one moment and flips it the next. In the end, it’s the attack that teeters off balance. Not the defense.
His contributions on this side of the puck shine even brighter when you consider his quality of competition:
Among the centers who logged equally tough minutes, only Adam Lowry, Yanni Gourde, Jordan Staal and Shane Pinto conceded fewer unblocked shot attempts. That’s…pretty good company.
Can’t be mad at his 60% goal share in that TOI either.
Does this mean he’s a shutdown center? Not quite. I mean, his linemates are Caufield (a 51-goal scorer) and Juraj Slafkovsky (an ascending young talent). He may face the opposition’s finest, but he’s instructed to beat them by any means necessary rather than through stinginess alone.
Labels notwithstanding, Suzuki’s two-way steadiness is now second nature to him. He’s blossomed into the team’s keystone in all three zones.
Dual Threat
With 29 goals and 72 assists on the year, there’s no denying that the Canadian Olympian is a pass-first player. He always has been and has elevated his playmaking to a new level this season. Unlike Robert Thomas, though, you don’t have to beg him to pull the trigger:
The fact that he’ll look at the net himself juices both his setups and scoring potential. Opponents aren’t afforded the luxury of cheating in any single direction, and with Caufield’s marksmanship (19.8 S%), Slafkovsky’s tight-quarters proficiency (94th percentile in HD goals) and Lane Hutson’s wizardry at his disposal, he can manufacture A TON of offense.
His passes may not leap off the screen the way Connor McDavid or Nikita Kucherov’s do, but they’re effective nonetheless. They don’t ask how, right?
You can’t argue with these results:
Despite the Habs’ emergence as an Atlantic Division powerhouse, you shouldn’t confuse them for squad that governs the action at 5-on-5. They rank 23rd in shot attempt and expected goal share, and their offense is largely of the quick-strike or rush-based variety. That suits Suzuki just fine.
As a skater whose long-track wheels dwarf his short-area burst, he’s most visible in jailbreak situations, on sudden changes of possession, etc. Instances that don’t hinge on 1-on-1 separation:
In addition to his organic growth as a player, Suzuki’s offense is reaping the rewards of an adjustment he made a couple of years ago:
Armed with a twig tailored to his preferences, the center has never looked so confident in possession. He’s more accurate, more deceptive, more enterprising. There’s seemingly no angle he can’t access from his hip pocket, and his gift for manipulation complements this newfound dexterity. He constantly sells defenders and goaltenders on one idea and holds fast until his true target shakes free in good ice. Subtle roll of the wrist —> Grade A opportunity.
If you’re open on the rush, he can nestle the puck in your wheelhouse. If he hops onto loose change near the goalmouth, his deft touch passing creates tap-ins where most forwards would simply bang away. He has the vision and the finesse. Perhaps most importantly, he has a firm handle on the optimal mode of attack.
This ties back into his shooting. Again, his passing bias doesn’t stop him from firing when it’s the best decision. Almost every shot he takes is a smart one:
Especially in the 2-3 seconds following a takeaway, he demonstrates razor-sharp spacing, parking an inch beyond the nearest defender’s range as an off-wing trigger man or curling to the crease when opponents are hypnotized farther out. Suzuki credits head coach Martin St. Louis for fine-tuning this facet of the top line’s arsenal over the past few years:
“He’s going to teach the four guys that don’t have the puck so the guy with the puck is able to make better reads and better decisions – putting the four other guys in better spots, being able to see the ice better for what the puck carrier is going through.”
There’s a reason one of Suzuki, Caufield or Slafkovsky is perpetually available on scrambles or rushes. They’ve been drilling this for a while.
The pivot has thus never been less predictable or more prepared to capitalize on your mistakes. Better yet, he doesn’t press the issue. He’ll gladly work the puck around the horn, keep the play alive and wait for the right window to reveal itself.
On the PP, however, that dynamic is flipped on its head:
Suzuki goes from a quick-strike assassin to a high-usage and deliberate quarterback on the man advantage. In a game state where defenders usually hesitate to attack the puck outright, the optionality baked into his game explodes on the decision-making and positional fronts.
The default set involves a three-man triangle between himself (flank), Caufield (goal line) and Slafkovsky (bumper). He boasts the sauce to hit the latter, but the former is even scarier as a sniper who quietly climbs higher as Suzuki drifts into middle ice. The duo disguises this design incredibly well. You can’t forget Ivan Demidov as an off-wing timer and Hutson’s X-factor at the point. When the PK defies the initial look, he and Caufield will trade places to amplify the bumper’s presence and open up the back-door corridor to Demidov.
He’ll also pop up in the deep slot or the bumper and is a far more pronounced shooting threat on the PP—particularly on Demidov’s cross-seam setups. There’s a ridiculous amount of fluidity and interchangeability on PP1.
Here’s an example of the first set in action:
Suzuki and Caufield start the sequence with a seemingly harmless game of pitch-and-catch on the perimeter. In actuality, they’re pulling Peeke’s strings. Sending the puck down low draws the RD to the goal line and allows the center to creep into the left circle on reception of the return feed:
They now reverse the roles, as Suzuki’s positioning lures Peeke up the ice, freeing Caufield to rise above the goal line and assert himself as a potential shooter.
Another pass to the winger, and the Bruins find themselves in a world of trouble:
As Peeke flailed from one post to the next, Caufield became a viable target and Suzuki moved from outside the circle to inside the dots. There’s no assistance on the way either because the closest forward, Marat Khusnutdinov (BOS 92), must account for Hutson in a prime shooting location.
For Montreal, it’s a matter of executing from this favorable position. Suzuki’s hands and brain take care of business:
In a great spot himself, Suzuki enters his platform with Peeke in panic mode. Should I flex out? Can I afford to leave Caufield alone? He ultimately holds a shallow-ish depth, so his counterpart throws in one last wrinkle to secure the lane to his winger. A quick pump toward the net invites Peeke’s blade inside and persuades Jeremy Swayman (BOS 1) to drop into his butterfly. Fatal errors vs. the league’s second-best goal scorer this season:
Two-touch pass —> short-side laser on a prone goaltender.
Now here’s a look at Suzuki and Caufield switching positions to generate slot passes from lower in the formation:
On the first attempt, the captain connects with Demidov at the back door. An A+ chance, yet for Suzuki, the larger story is how it materializes. There’s a total communication breakdown between the weak-side defenseman (Adam Pelech, NYI 3) and the weak-side forward (Bo Horvat, NYI 14).
He intends to exploit it once more ~5 seconds later:
Caufield’s pass to the goal line activates Demidov, and as Suzuki expects, the Islanders over-correct down low (Horvat sinks). At the same time, Slafkovsky fades from the slot to the lip of the right circle and Montreal’s QB crawls up the wall to lighten the traffic in that lane. Pelech (reminder: a D-man) is faced with the dilemma of whether to venture out to the high slot. Sensing that it couldn’t possibly be his job, he signals for someone to cover Slafkovsky. It’s too late.
Pass through Emil Heineman’s (NYI 51) triangle —> high-glove bomb.
Suzuki’s blend of cut-throat opportunism and long-game IQ has translated to a whopping 43 points on the man advantage. That ranks second in the NHL behind only McDavid’s tally. Alongside his solid EV contributions, his surging impact on the PP has led to a seventh consecutive increase in production rate:
There are flaws too, of course. He’s sometimes a bit careless along the OZ wall. He doesn’t seem comfortable in smash-mouth affairs. The numerous offensive pros still tower over the few cons in his bag.
At 5-on-5, Montreal’s offense is electrifying. On the PP, it’s surgical. Suzuki lies at the heart of its success in both settings.
He’s one of eight 100-point men in the league this season and the first Habs player to reach the century mark since 1985-86. They also win the territorial battle during his TOI (52.6 CF%, 53.3 xGF%, 76th percentile in OZ time). Oh, and if his previous performance is any indication, there may still be room for improvement.
The last Habs forward to take home the Selke was Guy Carbonneau 34 years ago. Suzuki is primed to earn the distinction this season. His two-way standing launched him onto a stacked Team Canada roster and he has the mandatory offensive output for consideration. Unless shutdown hockey suddenly returns to the spotlight (in which case Pinto would enter the discussion), he’s the front-runner.
You get the sense the Canadiens aren’t too fussed about individual awards, though. They’re more interested in how their captain’s complete game can help them end a different streak…