This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Nick Suzuki
Montreal Canadiens Center
Sixty-one points and a minus-29 at 20:31 a night on the worst club in the league, off the 10th-percentile offensive-zone deployment.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | MTL | 71 | 13 | 28 | 41 | -15 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 138 | 9.4 | 15:59 |
| 2020-21 | MTL | 56 | 15 | 26 | 41 | -5 | 26 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 110 | 13.6 | 18:11 |
| 2021-22 | MTL | 82 | 21 | 40 | 61 | -29 | 30 | 8 | 1 | 4 | 186 | 11.3 | 20:31 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 209 | 49 | 94 | 143 | -49 | 62 | 19 | 2 | 6 | 434 | 11.3 | 18:21 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
21 goals and 40 assists in eighty-two games — 61 points, at 20:31 a night, the 96th percentile among forwards. And a minus-29, on a club that finished 32nd in the league.
Thirteenth overall in 2017, three seasons, 209 games, 143 points, at 23.
The Finesse Game
1.75 even-strength points per 60 is only the 46th percentile and a third of his points came on the power play, off 3:05 a night. The scoring rate is ordinary and the ice time is elite, which is what happens when a bad club has one centre.
6.64 shots per 60 is the 36th percentile at 11.3 per cent. Fifty per cent from the slot at a 24-foot median — sensible locations, modest volume.
45.6 per cent of the expected goals is the 16th percentile and 46.8 per cent of the attempts the 23rd. His ice went 47-61 against an expectation of 46.71-55.84, so the goals against were worse than the chances against — the goaltending behind him.
47.0 per cent of his end-zone starts came in the attacking end — below even, and the 238th-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts. That is a modest qualifier on the numbers above and not an excuse for them.
2.53 giveaways per 60 is the 93rd percentile, which is the price of being the only man on this roster asked to carry it out of the zone.
With Cole Caufield across 1,056 attempts he took 45.2 per cent of the chances; Caufield away from him read 48.7. Neither figure is good and the pairing is not the reason.
The Physical Game
3.18 hits per 60 is the 39th percentile and 2.21 blocks the 76th. He killed 1:30 a night, the 73rd percentile.
0.93 penalties drawn per 60 against 0.54 taken is an 80th-percentile net. Thirty penalty minutes in eighty-two games.
The Intangibles
22.9 mph is the 76th percentile, 7.7 bursts per 60 the 74th, 9.93 miles per 60 the 75th. Above average on every chip reading, which is unusual in this edition for a player who scores.
He is 23 and played every game of a 61-point season. A minus-29 on the worst club in hockey is a fact about the club — his ice conceded eleven goals more than the chances against it warranted, and Montreal’s goaltending rated 23rd. The scoring rate is the honest concern, and it is a concern about the supporting cast as much as about him.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- ordinaryraised, and called ordinary
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
15:10 a game at five-on-five, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“2.53 giveaways per 60 is the 93rd percentile, which is the price of being the only man on this roster asked to carry it out of the zone.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,244 minutes
- Expected goals
- 45.6%
- 21st pct
- Shot attempts
- 46.8%
- 27th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 47 for, 61 against. Expected: 46.7 and 55.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 46 points above where the numbers do. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 64 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 22.9 mph
- 85th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.62 a game
- Distance
- 3.39 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 90.9 mph
- 70th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 1244 minutes at five-on-five
- Mike Hoffman29%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2021-22
- The club
- MTL took 46.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.6% — 0.6 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,244 minutes at five-on-five — 88th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cole Caufield | 45.2% | 45.9% | 48.7% |
| Alexander Romanov | 45.2% | 45.8% | 47.0% |
| David Savard | 44.1% | 46.2% | 45.5% |
45.2% together, 45.9% for him apart and 48.7% for Caufield apart. Caufield was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for him.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
234 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 22 of them goals. His median goal came from 18 feet. 41% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 15% from beyond forty.