The Montreal Canadiens took a major hit on the injury front on Thursday. Nick Suzuki, per the team, has suffered an upper-body injury. He’s expected to miss two to four weeks.
In nine games played for the Habs, he was the machine of the offense, posting 12 points, with five goals. For an 84-game pace, that would have given him 46 goals and 112 points. Both would have been career highs.
While it appears to be a month at most, the Canadiens will now have to navigate that time without their best player.
What was lost with the Nick Suzuki Injury
There are two ways to look at this injury. One is for how it impacts the team, and one is for how it impacts Suzuki from an individual achievement standpoint.
For the team, they’re already struggling early in the year. They’re 18th in the league in goals scored, and they’re 28th in goals allowed. He's kept them in a number of games this season. Take Suzuki out of the equation, and this could get much dire quickly.
Suzuki was involved in 42.8% of the team’s scoring so far this season. Who is going to be the one who can replace that production? There is at least a hint as to who. According to the Montreal Gazette's Stu Cowan, Oliver Kapanen is practicing on the top line with Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky.
He's played in two games so far this season and hasn't registered a point. Perhaps this could be a chance for the 23-year-old to step up.
In regard to the rest of the lineup, others should be the same as usual. Josh Anderson has been off to a strong start, and he’s never touched the ice alongside Suzuki. However, it just became more important that he sticks to his unusual pace.
Lane Hutson can still be expected to be a key part of driving the offense. He assisted on four of Suzuki’s goals. Two of them were specifically primary assists. Setting up a different player than the Canadiens’ best won’t translate to the same results, but you have to trust that he’ll be able to do his job.
For individual achievement, Suzuki lost his Ironman streak. He made his NHL debut in 2019-20, and he has played in all 546 games up to this point. The only reason he hasn’t played in 82 games every year is that the COVID-19 pandemic shortened two seasons.
That’s a shame in its own right. Before this, he had a legitimate chance to chase the record. Now, forget it.
At this point, all the Canadiens can do now is hope he’s back sooner rather than later. Either way, they likely won’t be completely out of it in two to four weeks, but the sooner he’s back, the easier it is for them to stay in it.
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