Nick Suzuki: Strength in Acquisition
One of the things that has really stood out in Nick Suzuki’s NHL career thus far is how he’s been able to adapt his strength to the NHL and get stronger in his shoulder and lower body in puck protection. It’s one of the most intriguing attributes in his game that gives him leverage in 1v1 battles and rushes up ice, where he can protect pucks without losing speed and without losing balance easily. Part of this is also having a lower center of gravity, which Suzuki has had naturally throughout the entirety of his career thus far, but it is really intriguing to see how well developed Suzuki has become in strength.
I think that was one of the reasons why he wasn’t necessarily a top center in the league right away, because he needed to develop that strength aspect on the puck further to become a more dominant, hard to play against center. Now when you watch Suzuki, there’s almost a Barkov-like element to his ability to simultaneously manage the puck in uncomfortable body positions while holding off defenders. I do certainly think there’s potential for Suzuki to become a Selke-level center in the future, because of that more developed power forward side of his game coming into form more.
When you watch Suzuki play, he doesn’t play like he is 5’11, and I honestly think he plays more like he is 6’2 or 6’3 with the dominance he protects the puck with now. Again, there’s still more work to be done offensively and some polishing in terms of finishing and even strength offense, but Suzuki certainly has Selke-level upside longer-term.
It took just a minute for Suzuki to score here, where I really like the display of pure power both maneuvering around D1 and maneuvering around the VAN netminder. Suzuki’s ability to not lose speed and not lose balance was also very impressive here, where Suzuki was able to do a great job of getting around the pressure and protecting the puck with ease.
Suzuki made it look easy because of his calm demeanor in this situation as well. He plays with a calmness regularly to him, and he does a great job of maintaining that demeanor in situations where it would be easy to lose that calmness, like here.
The other thing Suzuki did really well here was understand how to maneuver around the net minder considering he was on an awkward angle. Suzuki was able to maneuver around pretty easily, and was able to do a great job of beating him on the far side of the net here as well.