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EspañolMONTREAL — In the shadow of Mr. Saturday Night, Cole Caufield, who scored the first two goals and was named the first star of the Canadiens’ 6-2 win over the Washington Capitals, stands Nick Suzuki, who’s speaking in hushed tones about the way his team locked down a lead two nights after squandering one to the New York Islanders.
He’s spreading the credit around, taking none for himself, applauding his teammates for continuing to press from up 4-1, for trying to bury the game on a late power play while keeping in mind what coach Martin St. Louis emphasized during a timeout — to not be so careless as to allow the Capitals a chance to break up the ice — and largely executing it, even if the puck didn’t go in for them.
All the Canadiens were doing was following Suzuki’s lead, because nothing he does on the ice is in the shadows.
All of it has stood out that much more to these eyes since his return from the Olympics.
Not just to these eyes, though.
“It translates directly,” the captain of the Canadiens said after he registered three points to get to 68 on his season and finishing plus-4 in Game 59 to improve to plus-28. “Just being around those guys, practising, trying to earn your spot every time you go out on the ice, I think it helps. You can’t take anything for granted, and I want to continue to build and become a better player.”
Seeing Suzuki fight through the grind of the last week suggests he’s on the right path.
A week ago, he was on the cusp of achieving a lifelong dream. A day later he watched it go up in smoke, with Canada’s gut-wrenching loss to Team USA the abrupt and anticlimactic end to the wildest emotional rollercoaster he’d ever ridden. And yet, there was no evidence of its toll on him.
If crashing down from the highest of highs hadn’t affected Suzuki, you’d have thought the jetlag from his three-week stay in Milan would’ve.
But instead of looking sluggish on the ice through his first two games back, Suzuki’s appeared even more energized than when he left.
Faster, too.
“He’s flying,” said Canadiens defenceman Alex Carrier.
It’s not an illusion.
Watching Suzuki turn on the jets to beat Alex Ovechkin down the ice to a loose puck which he backhanded into Charlie Lindgren’s vacated net, after he played 2:53 of the 4:32 prior, was proof positive of his elevated pace.
Suzuki confirmed it’s up a beat.
“I think so,” he said. “In a long season, you can kind of get maybe a little bit comfortable and maybe not skating as hard as I could and conserving, but I think I found a pretty good spot where I’m picking my points to try to use my speed a bit more.”
The leadership part is just par for the course, according to Caufield.
“Just does what he does,” said the man who now has 35 goals — 15 of which have come on Saturday nights. “Obviously, he’s doing it every night, and he didn’t get a break like we did. He just never complains, does it the right way, and we’re just lucky to have a leader like that, that does it every night.”
Kind of like Connor McDavid for the Edmonton Oilers. Kind of like Nathan MacKinnon for the Colorado Avalanche.
And yeah, kind of like Sidney Crosby, who Suzuki was trying to observe most over his Olympic crash course in being an everyday winner.
“Just the way he carries himself,” Suzuki said, “he does everything the right way. Just leads by example more than anything.”
He might as well have been talking about himself.
That’s how the Canadiens see Suzuki.
It’s how St. Louis sees him, too.
So, he hasn’t noticed marked change in Suzuki since the player’s return from Italy.
“I feel right now what I’m observing is just what I’ve seen for the years that I’ve been with him,” St. Louis said.
“I thought he was excellent against the Islanders. I thought he was excellent tonight,” St. Louis continued. “I just feel he’s in control a lot. And when he’s at his best, I feel that’s what you see from Nick. But the way he’s played the last two games, I think we feel like we expect that from Nick each night, and I feel like we’re lucky to have him.”
Not just on the stat sheet, where Suzuki usually leads the Canadiens.
The 28-year-old’s influence on his team’s process runs so much deeper than goals, assists, face-offs and pluses. He rises to each big occasion — like Saturday’s game against a Washington team that’s had the Canadiens’ number over the last few seasons, a game that threatened to pull his team closer to the playoff bubble than towards the top of the Atlantic Division — and finds a way to be the best player on the ice just by being himself.
“If I’m playing the right way, doing the right things, I think guys have kind of no choice but to follow if top are playing the game the right way,” Suzuki said. “We have pretty high standards in here, so you do the best you can to hold those up for the players.”
It’s just what he does — quietly, confidently, and now with the experience of being put on the level with the game’s greats bolstering his impact.
“I think that’s pushed me to a different level than I was at before the break,” Suzuki said.
There’s no denying it.
