Norman Flynn: “We have enough talent to replace Nick Suzuki”

Michaël Petit
Norman Flynn: “We have enough talent to replace Nick Suzuki”
Credit: Matt Garies/NHLI via Getty Images

The loss of Nick Suzuki is clearly going to hurt… a lot.

Not only are the Montreal Canadiens losing their captain, but they're also losing the cornerstone of their offense. He's the team's top center, plays in every situation, and, of course, brings a lot of leadership as captain.

Obviously, he's very hard to replace—and probably the hardest player to replace in Montreal.

However, Norman Flynn sees it differently.

Even though he says he loves Suzuki and that his loss will hurt a lot, he still believes there's enough depth to replace him.

This discussion on The Sick Podcast with Tony Marinaro began when Marinaro asked Flynn if Suzuki was the hardest player to replace on the Habs.

Flynn explained that, even though he loves the captain, losing Suzuki would be less of a blow than losing Lane Hutson.

Obviously, both players would be huge losses, but the captain currently contributes more to the team than the young defenseman.

It's all well and good to have depth on offense and to see the other lines producing, but you can't replace a Suzuki with a Jake Evans in the long run.

In the short term, it might work (as we saw with Evans' three-point performance on Friday night).

As I mentioned earlier, Suzuki is the backbone of this offensive line, both on the power play and at five-on-five. And his leadership on the ice carries a lot of weight, too.

For two or three games, it's fine, but for possibly a month, the Habs are going to find it a long haul without their captain.

Will management try to add some depth at center soon to help make up for the loss of #14? We'll see.


In a nutshell

– At the end of the video, Caufield and Slafkovsky swapped sticks, and you can see a new “tape job” on Slafkovsky's stick. Is he trying to stir things up?

– MSL has complete confidence in HuGo.

– A major loss for the Kraken.

– Must-read.

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