Nick Suzuki and the young Canadiens are out to prove more people wrong in the playoffs

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MONTREAL — As Nick Suzuki made his way to centre ice when it was all over, where the Montreal Canadiens gather to raise their sticks and salute their fans after a victory, he took a twirl away from the rest of the group.

Suzuki was the one who said the rest of the league was sleeping on his team and its ability to make the playoffs. He was the one who not only went to general manager Kent Hughes just before the 4 Nations Face-Off break and asked him not to break up the team at the trade deadline, but also had the gumption to go public with it. He came out of that break as one of the NHL’s top scorers down the stretch to drive the Canadiens to a 15-5-6 finish that resulted in this moment.

He had put a lot of this on his own shoulders as the young captain of this young team. And thus, on Wednesday night, once the Canadiens clinched their first playoff spot since reaching the Stanley Cup Final in the pandemic-impacted 2021 season, Suzuki took a moment to release some of the pressure he put on himself.

As he twirled away from the group, Suzuki banged the ice with his stick so hard, it looked as if his stick might’ve shattered in his hands.

When asked in the dressing room afterward about the physics behind his stick somehow surviving, he laughed. There was a lot of pent-up energy that went into that stick banging.

“I was just excited,” Suzuki said. “It’s been a crazy week being able to clinch and not being able to do it.

“So a little bit of relief coming out.”

It was only natural for Suzuki to feel relieved after all the confidence he showed in the Canadiens’ ability to do it when no one outside the Canadiens dressing room believed it to be possible.

As unexpected as it was externally before the season, over the last week, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the Canadiens would make the playoffs. Everyone expected it — not just Suzuki or the guys in his dressing room, but also his team’s legion of fans and the rest of the hockey world.

Everyone.

Not doing it would have been seen as a massive choke, despite the lack of expectations coming into the season, or even halfway through the season, or even going into the 4 Nations break. Suddenly, this team had the expectations from everyone else that they always had from themselves, and they were wilting under it.

“I don’t think I put any more pressure on myself than I would have at the beginning of any season,” Suzuki said. “I just had a belief in our group, the guys that we have and our coaches. We always seem to figure out ways to get better. We go on a losing streak, we learn something from it. We’ve had a bunch of winning streaks and shown how dominant we can be. I think all the guys have learned a lot of different lessons throughout the season, myself included.”

The Carolina Hurricanes showed up at the Bell Centre without their best players. They had long since not only punched their ticket to the playoffs, but also knew their opponent. This game was an annoyance to them. They had four AHL call-ups in the lineup. If the Canadiens had lost to this version of the Hurricanes, under these circumstances, and had to wait until Thursday to see if the Columbus Blue Jackets failed to beat the New York Islanders in regulation to find out if they made the playoffs or not, it would have been a choke. There is no other way to look at it.

It wasn’t perfect, far from it, but the Canadiens did not choke. They are in the playoffs, just as Suzuki predicted at the season-opening golf tournament in September, and exactly where every single player on that team believed they would be.

At the end of this game, Suzuki knew he would have to address the Bell Centre crowd because it was fan appreciation night. He has done this before, but in his experience, fan appreciation night has never carried this much weight.

“I knew I had to give a speech at the end of the night,” Suzuki said, “so I didn’t want to lose and have to do that.”

Suzuki’s speech began quite succinctly. It began in French.

“Ça va bien, Montréal?” he screamed into the microphone.

How’s it going, Montreal?

Just about as simple a phrase as Suzuki could have uttered in that moment, but one that resonated.

The crowd roared.

ÇA VA BIEN MONTRÉAL!?

HOW WE FEELING MONTREAL!?#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/0f3M657uXV

— x – Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) April 17, 2025

Just like Suzuki, those fans had waited for this moment. For the first time in franchise history, the Canadiens had entered a period in which they would be intentionally missing the playoffs year after year. This was communicated to the fans, and they not only accepted it but also embraced it.

Except when the Canadiens took the ice Wednesday night, they did so to a standing ovation. That is unusual at any time other than the playoffs, but this was essentially a playoff game.

And at the end, once Jake Evans had scored into an empty net to make it 4-2, and as defenceman Alexandre Carrier was battling in the corner with the Hurricanes’ William Carrier — no relation — and Alexandre Carrier was successfully pinning the puck against the boards, killing time, the crowd stood and applauded again.

It might have been the first time a puck pinned against the boards — the most boring play in hockey — was met with a standing ovation.

“They’re obviously just as excited as us,” Suzuki said. “It’s great to feel that love from the fans.

“I can’t wait to get in this place for our first playoff game, finally.”

The Canadiens are not satisfied with this. They want to make some noise in the playoffs against the Washington Capitals, and they might.

But the pressure is off. They’ve exceeded external expectations this season and met their own.

When Kaiden Guhle, author of two goals, was given the player of the game sunglasses, his speech demonstrated that this is just the start of another challenge.

“Sixteen more, boys,” he told his teammates.

Ce que Guhles a dit

What Guhles said#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/eJJz2xe82T

— x – Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) April 17, 2025

Another 16 wins for this group is unlikely, but even being in a position to hope for 16 playoff wins was unlikely. No one believed they could do it except themselves, and they’ve done it. So why put limits on them now?

“We’re still a young team, and we knew we were going to go through ups and downs,” Juraj Slafkovský said. “We just had to stay with it, stay focused. Even if we lose, we were focused on the next game and make sure we show up the next game and at some point, we’re going to flip it. We flipped it a couple of times with important wins, and then we went on those downs, and then we flipped it again. It’s all part of the group that we all wanted to make it so bad.

“At the end of the day, nothing matters. We are where we are, and I feel like we fully deserve this.”

The Canadiens do deserve it. They are ahead of schedule. They have already done something no one expected them to do. Whatever happens against the Capitals will not change the fact that this Canadiens season is already a rousing success.

They are a young team with nothing to lose. It’s a dangerous combination.

“(The Capitals) are obviously a veteran group, they’ve got a deep lineup, they’ve got two goalies that have done well all season,” Suzuki said. “It’s going to be a challenge, but I like our chances against anybody.”

(Photo: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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