This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Nick Suzuki
Montreal Canadiens Center
Two hundred and eighty-six points in 373 games, the captaincy at 25, and a career minus-76 that is not his.
| 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 | MTL | 82 | 26 | 40 | 66 | -13 | 33 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 162 | 16.1 | 21:06 |
| 2023-24 | MTL | 82 | 33 | 44 | 77 | -14 | 36 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 185 | 17.8 | 21:16 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 373 | 108 | 178 | 286 | -76 | 131 | 38 | 5 | 9 | 781 | 13.8 | 19:36 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 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
All 82 games, 33 goals and 44 assists for 77 points, 12 on the power play, 36 penalty minutes, 21:16 a night and minus-14. He took 49.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,265 minutes, the 52nd percentile, and his ice went 59-51 against an expectation of 56.43-56.61.
Three goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and six fewer conceded than they called for. An even chance share on the hardest centre assignment on a club that was 29th in shot share is the most impressive thing on this page.
The Finesse Game
275 attempts at a median of 24 feet with 40 per cent from inside 20, 185 of them on goal, converted at 17.8 per cent against a career 13.83.
178 career assists in 373 games. Thirty-three goals is a career high by seven and the conversion rate says some of it will come back. He is a passer first and the shot has arrived late, which is the opposite of how most centres develop.
The Physical Game
He is 5-11 and 207 and holds the puck against pressure below the goal line.
36 penalty minutes in 82 games at twenty-one a night is a low rate. He takes the draw, kills penalties, and has 5 career shorthanded goals.
The Intangibles
Thirteenth overall in 2017 by Vegas, out of London, Ontario, five seasons and 373 games, and the captaincy of the Montreal Canadiens at 23.
He is 25 and carries a career minus-76 that describes five seasons of bad clubs rather than the player. Seventy-seven points on this roster is the whole argument that the rebuild has a centre.
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
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
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
15:26 a game at five-on-five, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“He is 5-11 and 207 and holds the puck against pressure below the goal line.”
“He takes the draw, kills penalties, and has 5 career shorthanded goals.”
“He takes the draw, kills penalties, and has 5 career shorthanded goals.”
“He is a passer first and the shot has arrived late, which is the opposite of how most centres develop.”
“Thirteenth overall in 2017 by Vegas, out of London, Ontario, five seasons and 373 games, and the captaincy of the Montreal Canadiens at 23.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,265 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.9%
- 52nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.4%
- 50th 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: 59 for, 51 against. Expected: 56.4 and 56.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 32 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 77 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, 2023-24 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 23.0 mph
- 89th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.66 a game
- Distance
- 3.41 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 90.9 mph
- 75th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.1
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.5
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
2023-24 · 1265 minutes at five-on-five
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, 2023-24
- The club
- MTL took 46.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.9% — 3.8 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,265 minutes at five-on-five — 88th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cole Caufield | 50.5% | 47.3% | 42.2% |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | 49.9% | 49.9% | 46.1% |
| Mike Matheson | 47.8% | 52.1% | 41.8% |
50.5% together, 47.3% for him apart and 42.2% for Caufield apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
275 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 37 of them goals. His median goal came from 21 feet. 40% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 16% from beyond forty.