What makes the Canadiens’ power play dangerous

Watch out for the Montreal Canadiens on the man advantage.

Joining Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Jon Goyens chatted with Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk about the Canadiens’ success on the power play this season and why captain Nick Suzuki is due much credit.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s start with special teams. It’s been an interesting season in that regard. [The Canadiens’] power play has not just spiked at certain points, but rather it’s actually been a bit of a steady improvement. Surely that can’t all just be having Patrik Laine over there, right?

Jon Goyens: No, absolutely not. In some of the clips, when we fire those up, it was about time we saw a little bit of creativity. Get Suzuki, get a guy like Cole Caufield. Everyone thought that guy belongs on the flank, but in fact the more Suzuki and Caufield are interchanging and in movement and not necessarily stationary, it has opened up a ton. A guy like Juraj Slafkovsky has now become a bit of a bigger presence down low and willing to take pucks to the net. Obviously, last year, a guy like Mike Matheson had 62 points. He was top-10 for defensemen in scoring on the power play, but their power play was near the bottom of the league. This year, Lane Hutson eventually takes over that first power play unit and he is cool, calm, and collected. Today is going to be a lot of pumping tires for Suzuki. He deserves all of it. I really want to set the table. He’s looking here, and he’s showing you the puck here, and he’s going to zip it here. He looks like he’s looking at two pass options and he puts it under the bar. This guy is on the verge of being Team Canada material. I think he is just absolutely outstanding. I think this whole notion that he has to be the next Patrice Bergeron, I think he is just ‘the Nick Suzuki’. You’ll see what a guy like that does [on the power play], Hutson, Caufield, and how they move around, because now everybody is just sitting on Laine and trying to take away that Alex Ovechkin type of one-timer.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here: