Nick Suzuki is leading the charge in all kinds of situations for the Montreal Canadiens.
Montreal’s captain has galvanized his team’s surge into the playoff picture with his offensive production since February.
And when the Canadiens needed him to step up on the penalty kill Saturday, turns out he excels at that, too. Suzuki scored a short-handed goal and added an assist as the Canadiens scored three third-period goals to beat the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 at a rowdy Bell Centre.
“We haven’t used him a ton because we try to save him a little bit, he plays some pretty heavy minutes,” veteran forward Brendan Gallagher said.
“But when he’s needed, he’s one of the best in every single situation.
“We feel very comfortable with him on the ice, and he obviously can make something happen at both ends.”
The Canadiens, who hold the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, gave themselves a four-point cushion over the New York Rangers with six games remaining.
Young Wabush Habs fan takes centre ice at the Bell Centre
The Rangers lost 4-0 to the host New Jersey Devils earlier on Saturday.
Montreal recorded its ninth third-period comeback this season, which leads the league.
“Just one goal, we’ve come back from worse,” Suzuki said. “We got a confident group.”
Suzuki has 31 points — 12 goals and 19 assists — in his last 20 games to rank second in NHL scoring since the 4 Nations Face-Off break.
The Canadiens have gone 12-4-4 during that stretch.
The 25-year-old centre also pushed his season total to 83 points, becoming Montreal’s first point-per-game player since Alex Kovalev in 2007-08.
On Saturday, he filled in on the penalty kill for winger Josh Anderson, who missed the game for “personal reasons” after telling reporters Thursday his wife was expecting their first child any day.
The Canadiens trailed 1-0 in the first period when Suzuki helped thwart a four-minute Flyers power play — with Montreal generating more chances than Philadelphia — after Alex Carrier drew blood with a high stick on Matvei Michkov.
When the Flyers went on the man advantage again with 10:40 remaining in the third, the captain took matters into his hands again.
Suzuki chased down a puck in Philadelphia’s corner after Kaiden Guhle’s clearance and cruised around the net before falling to one knee in the slot.
That didn’t stop him from picking the bottom right corner and beating Samuel Ersson off the post and in to give Montreal a two-goal lead.
“He’s a dog on a bone out there,” Lane Hutson said. “To see him win that puck and will it into a 3-1 game. It was awesome.”
Suzuki has climbed from 61 points in 2021-22, followed by 66 and 77 in the following two seasons without ever missing a game.
He still has six games to add to his career-high total this season, and no Canadien has surpassed 90 points since Vincent Damphousse and Pierre Turgeon in 1995-96.
“What’s his ceiling?” head coach Martin St. Louis said. “I want him to dictate what that ceiling is going to be. It’s fun to be part of his journey and just watch him evolve as a player and take charge and lead. It’s been impressive this year.”
Hutson fooled Ersson with a highlight-reel goal off an end-to-end rush 76 seconds after Gallagher — with his 20th of the season — scored early in the third period to tie the game. The 21-year-old defenceman, who leads all rookies in scoring, floated a sharp-angle shot into the top right corner after his skate down the ice.
It wasn’t immediately clear the shot went in the net until the referee signalled a goal and the crowd erupted for the fan favourite.
“I just heard everyone,” said Hutson. “I knew I had to try to beat him up over him, so I was kind of waiting for him to drop, and he did.”
With 63 points, Hutson moved one behind Chris Chelios for the most points in one season by a rookie defenceman in Canadiens franchise history.
Anderson has played a key role for the Canadiens this season, filling out the third line of him, Gallagher and Christian Dvorak that has been crucial to Montreal’s late-season surge.
St. Louis didn’t know if Anderson would join the Canadiens for their game in Nashville on Sunday, but the head coach liked how his team responded without a big piece in the lineup Saturday.
“I talk about what’s next, right? That was what’s next,” he said. “We talked about it, we’re going to play hard for Andy, and we can’t replace what Andy does just with one guy. It’s by
committee.
“Collectively, we did a pretty good job at that, but it’s hard to replace his pace and his size, his presence.”
With a few minutes left in Ottawa’s 3-0 win over the visiting Florida Panthers on Saturday afternoon, the Senators crowd chanted loudly, “We want playoffs.”
With the win, Ottawa (41-29-6) moved 12 games above .500 and closer to its first post-season berth since 2016-17.
“I’ve never seen a buzz like this,” Ottawa’s Drake Batherson said. “It creates momentum for our group.
“Every weekday game this week has been pretty well sold out, you come out for warmup and it’s jammed. You come out and you hear that crowd, even during ‘O Canada,’ and it’s just awesome to be playing in a Canadian market during this time of year.”
Batherson scored at 14:17 of the first period to make it 2-0 after Jake Sanderson opened the scoring three minutes earlier. It was the fourth straight home game where Sanderson has scored.
Batherson tipped in a Dylan Cozens slapshot and there was a sheepish celebration between the duo, as it came just seconds after Batherson missed a tap-in into an open net.
Matthew Highmore added an empty-net goal with less than three minutes to go.
But it was backup goalie Anton Forsberg who was the star of the show. He stopped 40 shots to record his third shutout of the season.
“He’s been awesome,” Batherson said. “He’s been one of the hardest-working guys I know, even if he doesn’t play four or five games, he’s still grinding so then when he does come in here, like today, he’s able to perform like that.
“You love seeing a guy come in like that and shut the door against the defending Stanley Cup champions. Huge game. Huge win. He played awesome.”
The Panthers (44-28-4) hadn’t been shut out since Dec. 28 when they fell to the Montreal Canadiens 4-0. That was their second straight scoreless effort, having lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning by the same 4-0 margin Dec. 23.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 19 saves for Florida, which has lost four straight.
The Senators defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 on Thursday before topping the Panthers on Saturday. Ottawa will host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday at 5 p.m. ET.
