{"id":136836,"date":"2025-09-11T19:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T19:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/136836\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T19:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T19:25:07","slug":"nick-suzuki-impressed-by-canadiens-off-season-acquisitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/136836\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Suzuki impressed by Canadiens off-season acquisitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Suzuki<\/a> has always been interested in hockey\u2019s business side. <\/p>\n

The trades, signings and draft picks teams hope will one day lead to a June parade fascinate the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> captain. <\/p>\n

Suzuki was impressed by the moves made by the Original Six franchise\u2019s front office this summer. <\/p>\n

Montreal acquired Noah Dobson<\/a> from the New York Islanders<\/a> on June 27 before signing the defenceman to an eight-year, US$76-million pact. The Canadiens\u2019 brain trust, led by president Jeff Gorton and general manager Kent Hughes, then snagged depth winger Zack Bolduc in a swap with the St. Louis Blues<\/a> four days later. <\/p>\n

And after emerging from a rebuild and making a playoff return last season, Suzuki believes the pair will be valuable additions as the Canadiens look to take another step in 2025-26.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to fit in perfectly,\u201d the centre said earlier this week at the NHL\/NHLPA player media tour on the Las Vegas strip. \u201cBoth play the style that we like, and I think they\u2019re going to really love the way we play.\u201d <\/p>\n

The 25-year-old Dobson joins a young blue-line corps that already includes the jaw-dropping talent of Calder Trophy winner Lane Hutson<\/a> and the steady Kaiden Guhle<\/a>. The 22-year-old Bolduc, meanwhile, has morphed into a dependable NHLer at both ends of the rink after scoring 124 combined goals over his final two junior seasons. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re really excited,\u201d said Suzuki, who turned 26 last month. \u201cThey fit right in with the age group \u2026 pretty impressive that we got those two young guys.\u201d <\/p>\n

A player who impressed late last season, meanwhile, was Ivan Demidov<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Russian forward selected No. 5 at the 2024 draft was expected to spend significant time on his homeland\u2019s KHL circuit. The 19-year-old instead joined Montreal in April and played two regular-season contests \u2014 he had a goal and an assist in an electric NHL debut \u2014 before suiting up in the Canadiens\u2019 five-game playoff loss to the Washington Capitals<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Suzuki was paying close attention to Demidov\u2019s progress at this time last year when he spoke to a small group of reporters at the same media event in Sin City. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great when he came over, seeing videos of people tracking his flight,\u201d the London, Ont., product said this week. \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh, man, this is crazy.\u2019 But that\u2019s how big of a talent he is, honestly. It was super impressive to see someone have that much talent at that age. Had a great start with us. <\/p>\n

\u201cLooking forward to seeing what he can bring.\u201d <\/p>\n

Suzuki, whose team missed the playoffs three springs in a row after making the 2021 Stanley Cup final, said it\u2019s important his roster wipes its slate clean and presses on in the ultracompetitive Atlantic Division with training camp looming.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot more of the same,\u201d he said. \u201cWe still have a lot to learn, but I think the lessons that we got last year were really important for our group, and to experience all those big games. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of things to build off.\u201d <\/p>\n

Suzuki, meanwhile, built his own game on the ice with a career-high 89 points (30 goals, 59 assists) in 2024-25. He wasn\u2019t part of Canada\u2019s setup at February\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, but responded with 37 points (15 goals, 22 assists) over the regular season\u2019s final 26 games \u2014 good for fourth overall in league scoring.<\/p>\n

All that while also carrying the weight of captaining the Canadiens. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely a lot more comfortable and confident in the role compared to two, three years ago,\u201d he said. \u201cGrowing as a person and a leader in our group has been fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following a strong off-season, Suzuki sees even brighter days ahead.<\/p>\n

CHANGING ADDRESSES<\/p>\n

The Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> acquired Mitch Marner from the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> in a sign-and-trade deal just ahead of free agency back in June. <\/p>\n

The star winger wasn\u2019t made available to the general media at the player tour in Las Vegas \u2014 despite being on-site \u2014 but Jack Eichel<\/a> can\u2019t wait to get his new teammate into the fold. <\/p>\n

\u201cWorld-class hockey player,\u201d the centre said of Marner, who\u2019s coming off a career-high 102-point season. \u201cOne of the smartest players in our league.\u201d <\/p>\n

Eichel knows about coming to Sin City from a northern hockey market after forcing a trade away from the Buffalo Sabres<\/a> in 2021. <\/p>\n

\u201cTons of credit to management to be able to add a player like Mitch,\u201d Eichel said. \u201cMitch was going to be a free agent \u2026 had his, I would assume, pick of the litter. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something special to be said for that.\u201d <\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2025. <\/p>\n

Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Suzuki has always been interested in hockey\u2019s business side. The trades, signings and draft picks teams hope…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-136836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}