Montreal forward Nick Suzuki, drafted by Vegas in 2017, will be returning to Las Vegas as the Canadiens face the Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup playoffs starting Monday.Claus Andersen/Getty Images
Nick Suzuki still gets chills when he thinks back to June 23, 2017. That night he was called to the stage at the United Center in Chicago as the second player to be drafted by the Golden Knights. Selected in the first round and 13th overall, he was so overwhelmed in the moment that he barely remembers being greeted by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
A little more than a year later, Suzuki was traded to the Canadiens as part of the deal that sent Montreal captain Max Pacioretty to Las Vegas. Swiftly, Suzuki went from utter elation to becoming a footnote for the most successful expansion team in sports history.
“It was a cool experience being one of their first players, but getting traded was definitely a shock,” the 21-year-old said Friday on a video call with journalists. “I was brand new to the team and got called to the general manager’s office.”
As days passed, Suzuki, who grew up in London, Ont., began to get excited about joining one of Canada’s two most famous franchises. Marc Bergevin, the Canadiens general manager, welcomed him.
“When Marc called me, he told me I was a big piece that they wanted,” Suzuki said. In exchange for Pacioretty, Suzuki was acquired by Montreal along with Tomas Tatar and a future draft pick. “I wanted to show him that he had made the right choice.”
As fortune would have it, Suzuki and the Golden Knights will cross paths again during the Stanley Cup semi-finals. The first game of the best-of-seven series is in Las Vegas on Monday night. Suzuki centres Montreal’s second line between Tyler Toffoli and Cole Caufield. Pacioretty is Vegas’s first-line centre.
“I think the trade worked out for both teams,” Suzuki says.
The Canadiens enter the third round with a head of steam but are still significant underdogs. They have not trailed a game in more than 400 minutes and go in with seven successive victories, but face an opponent that has reached the semi-finals in three of its four years of existence.
“At playoff time, you focus on living in the moment, but in between series you think about collectively what we have done,” Kelly McCrimmon, the Vegas general manager, said Friday. “It really is a tremendous accomplishment. But at this time of year, you don’t move forward by reminiscing.
“We are proud and excited by the fact that we are still playing and like everyone else we are happy to get through to the next round.”
On Thursday night, the Golden Knights polished off Colorado in six games. Before that, oddsmakers had installed the Avalanche as the favourite to win the Stanley Cup. By comparison, Montreal struggled to make the playoffs before it embarked on an improbable run. The Canadiens lost three of the first four games before they eliminated the Maple Leafs and then swept the Winnipeg Jets 4-0.
Suzuki has played a major role in their success. He is tied for the team lead with four goals and is second in scoring with eight points through their first 11 playoff games. Pacioretty, who has been hampered by an injury, has four goals and four assists in seven postseason games.
Both teams feature balanced scoring, tough defences and elite goalies in the Canadiens’ Carey Price and the Knights’ Marc-André Fleury.
“I think it is making out to be a really good series,” Suzuki says. “Everyone is excited to get there and get it going. We weren’t really figured to go this far, but we don’t care what other people say. We have a ton of confidence and that’s what every winning team needs.”
Teams will play opponents outside their own divisions for the first time during the semi-finals, which begin on Sunday with a game in Tampa between the Lightning and the New York Islanders. Montreal played wholly within the all-Canadian North Division, which seems to have been softer than the rest.
“Nobody has played each other so it is a little weird, but you have to be ready to play,” said Corey Perry, Montreal’s veteran winger. “It’s a new series. It’s Game 1.”
Not a single top seed survived through the first two rounds – Toronto and Pittsburgh were eliminated in the first and Carolina and Colorado were knocked out in the second. What will happen next is anybody’s guess.
“We’re really excited about the challenge,” McCrimmon said. “In terms of preparation, this is such a different series. In the first two rounds, we played teams we had seen eight times. This is brand new and we are starting from scratch.”