Montreal Canadiens: The Crystal Ball, Bold Offseason Predictions

The Minnesota Wild shocked the world yesterday by announcing that they have bought out the final 2 years of the contracts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise. No one saw this coming although there were rumblings that the Wild have been trying to trade Parise for some time now. But we’re not here to speculate about what Bill Guerin is trying to do in Minnesota. We’re here to predict that the Wisconsin native Ryan Suter will be wearing bleu-blanc-rouge next season.

There are many signs that point at Suter being a great short-term fit with the Canadiens. The obvious is he and Shea Weber both entered the league as members of the Nashville Predators in 2005-2006 and have played together, more often than not on the same pair, until 2011-2012.

Yes, he’s 36 and we already have an ageing defensive corp as it is. However, on a 1 or 2-year deal, he can provide an extra dose of leadership and can still play top minutes. If our previous prediction comes true and Jake Allen is traded and let’s say Joel Edmundson ends up in Seattle, you still have someone who can alleviate Ben Chiarot’s ice time on the left side. If Edmundson does stay, then adding Suter eliminates the need to play heavy minutes with 4 defensemen and gives Alexander Romanov not one but five veterans to learn from on the blue line.

Fun fact: Both Ryan Suter and Cole Caufield played for the University of Wisconsin and the US National Under-18 program.