“Little bit of an art” – Martin St. Louis praises Nick Suzuki comparing forward with Phil Kessel’s ‘iron man’ record
Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis praises Nick Suzuki for continuing his healthy game streak this season, comparing center with Phil Kessel’s record.
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Nick Suzuki and Martin St. Louis [Image Credit: Reddit/Eyes on the Prize]
Montreal Canadien forward Nick Suzuki remains the only player in his team to participate in all games this 2022-23 season so far. He repeated this feat last year by playing all 82 games, a feat only 45 NHL players have been able to accomplish.
Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis stated on Tuesday after practice at Bell Centre, that staying healthy for so long is “a little bit of an art”. When counting the number of games participated, NHL ‘iron man’ Phil Kessel cannot be left out. The forward player participated in 1,281 games recording 989 points with 412 goals and 577 assists.
This season Kessel scored 13 goals in 77 games adding 33 points with 20 assists. While Nick Suzuki recorded 23 goals and 38 assists in 77 games adding 61 points. In his NHL career, he has recorded 204 points with 72 goals and 132 assists in 286 games played.
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Nick Suzuki continues his ongoing NHL streak of playing all games in 2022-23 season
![Nick Suzuki [Image Credit: Puck Prose]](https://firstsportz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Untitled-design-12-5-1024x768.png)
Montreal Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis commented on Nick Suzuki’s ongoing stride, “I think staying healthy throughout a season, it’s a little bit of an art”. “It’s balancing everything and still doing your job. Taking care of yourself off the ice, getting in the gym a little bit.”
“But also preventing … when you feel like something’s coming, taking care of it right away so that it doesn’t get worse. Luck is part of it, there’s no doubt about it”. “But I think staying healthy for 82 games is a little bit of an art.”
Canadiens defenceman Johnathan Kovacevic praised Phil Kessel’s play, talking about his accomplishments, “Obviously, he’s doing something right”. “It is interesting and I was thinking about him and (Andrew) Cogliano (who had a streak of 830 consecutive games) and other guys who have played those long iron-man streaks because this is my first year playing an 82-game season.”
“It is a long season and you are playing three games a week, every other day, with travel in between.” Apart from the Vegas Golden Knight’s ‘iron man’, Canadiens Doug Jarvis also upheld the same nickname. He participated in 964 games before the record got broken by Flyers Keith Yandle on January 25 last year.
Among active NHLers, Nick Suzuki ranks 4th behind Phil Kessel. The others are Brent Burns with 755 games played and Ryan Suter with 366. Astonishingly, only 14 players in NHLers have kept the record of playing more than 600 consecutive games. Kovacevic stated prior to the game against the Capitals, “I don’t know how to explain it”.
“Those things are amazing. It’s super impressive that those guys are able to do it for that long. Great on those guys, but I think we are getting unlucky at times (this season) because a lot of these injuries have been freakish.”
“If someone lands on your knee or Andy (Josh Anderson) runs into a post (suffering a high ankle sprain), there’s no amount of training or preparation that can protect against that. I do hope that we’re just getting all of our bad luck out of the way right now.”
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Kaushani Chatterjee
(2141 Articles Published)