Hockey

We do not talk enough about Nick Suzuki’s excellent differential
Charles-Alexis Brisebois
We do not talk enough about Nick Suzuki’s excellent differential
Credit: Getty Images

The differential is a statistic that is worth… um…

In fact, it's hard to determine what the true value of the differential is, or the famous plus or minus on the stat sheet. After all, many factors come into play.

In my eyes, here's how I see it: it doesn't mean much… unless it's extreme. Like a win-loss record for a relief pitcher in baseball, for example.

And when you look at it, in Montreal, Nick Suzuki has a differential that stands out. With a plus-19, he's the only one on his team above plus-10 and he's in the top 50 in the league.

And especially, he did it for one of the only two playoff teams that have allowed more goals than they've scored. The other team: the Wild.

For the first time in his career, Suzuki is in the positive at the end of a season. It's more proof that the captain, who has only eight minutes of penalties this season and is the sixth-best center in the NHL in terms of points this season, has taken it to another level.

Without him, the Habs aren't in the playoffs.

Of course, we must also remember that he's one of the best scorers in the NHL since the Confrontation of the four nations, or when he asked Kent Hughes to keep the guys in the locker room and when he made the Habs' chances of qualifying go from 2% to 100%.

In my eyes, when you add all that up, you see the true value of Suzuki, who should continue to progress over the next few seasons.

Suzuki is a veteran on this team, which is still very young. He's one of the six active players on the team to have participated in the 2021 playoff run. He's one of the four remaining players from the 2020 bubble era.

He's probably learned a lot from those years – and from what it took to get back to the playoffs.

But now, it's his team. It'll be up to him to step up in the playoffs… and I don't know about you, but I don't see why Captain Stability wouldn't be able to do that in the next few days.

If we want the Canadiens to win against Washington, it'll have to go through him.


Overtime

– News from CF Montreal.

– Stress is rising in Toronto.

– The Habs will need him.

– Wow.

– Tonight, the Rocket could ensure they finish first in the AHL.

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