It’s been made pretty clear that Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield belong on a line together. They have great chemistry, represent the Montreal Canadiens’ future, and there is no reason to separate them.
For the majority of the playoffs, it was Tyler Toffoli who played with them on the left wing, but we also saw Josh Anderson step in and take that role.
They were both great and added something special to that line, and I would like to see both of them play with Suzuki and Caufield again.
With his time with the Canadiens, Toffoli has shown that he can be the goal-scorer the team needs, although he has lacked consistency, at times. However, Caufield is a natural goal-scorer, someone who just finds ways to get the puck, shoot it, and score. We have seen him fool defencemen many times, faking going one way and going another to create more space, and that wasn’t even his official rookie year.
As much as the Toffoli-Suzuki-Caufield line was great, I think it would be better for a team that lacks offence (as far as we’ve seen from last season) to have Toffoli and Caufield on two different lines. It would spread the team’s offence on different lines, and with the new additions, especially Mike Hoffman, it would help create more depth.
While both Toffoli and Suzuki can deliver quite big hits for their size, the real physicality we saw on that line was brought by Anderson. Add his speed to the mix and these are two of the fastest guys on the team playing together. One is a physical player who lives for off-the-rush moments and big hits, and the other one is a natural goal-scorer who always finds a way to create open-ice. With Suzuki being a great play-maker and two-way centre, this could be a very dangerous line.
If Anderson can also become more consistent, it would be an even deadlier line, as we saw how Caufield can be an amazing playmaker as well. Having him set up Anderson and Suzuki would be another (I want to say easy) way to create offence, especially if the other team is mostly expecting Caufield to be the one to shoot the puck.
Another option the Canadiens have, and that I have been looking forward to ever since the team made an update about it, is playmaker and left-winger Jonathan Drouin. He has one of the best hockey IQs in the league and it would only be highlighted if he were to play with a goal-scorer like Caufield. Drouin setting up plays for Suzuki and Caufield is something I really hope we get to see next season, because although he is not a very physical guy, his hockey IQ more than makes up for it.
In the end, there is no way of predicting who the dynamic duo will play with in the long run, and who they will thrive with, but Toffoli, Anderson, and Drouin should all be candidates and have a chance to show what they can do with that line.