Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki becomes a father ahead of playoff series
What a season this has been for Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki.
Suzuki became the first Canadiens player to hit the 100-point mark since Mats Naslund in 1985-86, finishing the season with 29-72-101 totals to finish sixth in NHL scoring. He’s the first Canadien to finish in the top 10 in NHL scoring since Naslund finished eighth in 1985-86 with 43-67-110 totals. The Canadiens went on to win the Stanley Cup that season.
Suzuki’s wife, Caitlin, gave him something else to celebrate on Wednesday when she gave birth to their first child, a girl named Maya. That’s why Suzuki wasn’t at practice Thursday at the CN Sports Complex in Brossard.
The captain was back on the ice for practice Friday in Brossard as the Canadiens prepared to face the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 1 of a first-round playoff series Sunday in Tampa (5:45 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports).
“My wife, she was awesome,” Suzuki said after practice. “It was definitely a special day for us and both our families. It was good timing for us right before heading to Tampa. Been an exciting couple of days.”
As for his baby daughter, Suzuki said: “She’s been great.”
The Canadiens will fly to Tampa on Saturday and won’t be back in Montreal until Wednesday, with Game 2 slated for Tuesday (7 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports). Games 3 and 4 will be at the Bell Centre next Friday (7 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports) and Sunday (7 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports).
The Canadiens have been experiencing a baby boom.
The wives of Brendan Gallagher, Alexandre Carrier, Noah Dobson and Samuel Montembeault are all pregant now. Gallagher’s wife gave birth to their first child, daughter Emma, last February and the second baby is due around July. Jake Evans’s wife gave birth to twin boys last summer and Josh Anderson’s wife gave birth to daughter Stella last spring.
“It’s unreal,” Carrier said earlier this season when asked about the baby boom. “Just talking to my wife, (the wives) text each other all the time. They compare pictures and all that. It’s been exciting.”
Suzuki and his wife have known each other since they were in high school in London, Ont. They were married last summer.
“We kind of just knew each other through mutual friends,” Caitlin said in a story on the Canadiens’ website in 2024. “He had been living out of town playing hockey (for the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack), but we just kind of connected at the time — 2016 or 2017 — on Instagram and Snapchat and the rest is history.”
When asked what Suzuki’s best qualities are, Caitlin said: “He’s super compassionate. He’s super easy to get along with. There are a lot of things about him all in one realm. I think his demeanour in general is something that is one of his greatest qualities. Anything you throw at him, any stressful situation, any bad situation, he always knows how to handle everything, and he does it calmly.”
With the baby born, Suzuki is now excited to start the playoff series against Tampa in a rematch of the 2021 Stanley Cup final that the Lightning won in five games. Suzuki is one of six members of the current team who were with the Canadiens in 2021, along with Evans, Anderson, Gallagher, Phillip Danault and Cole Caufield.
“There’s definitely emotions and feelings with how that ended for us,” Suzuki said. “The guys who experienced that can lean on that. Show the guys in the room what it takes to win in the playoffs and I think everyone’s excited for that.”
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Last season the Canadiens lost to the Washington Capitals in five games in the first round of the playoffs.
“I think we’ve built our game throughout the whole season, learning different things individually, as a team,” Suzuki said. “I think we’re in a much better spot than we were last year in the playoffs. We’ve matched up against these guys (the Lightning) well in the last couple of years. I think there’s no intimidation. We’re just ready to get rolling. Two really good teams going up against each other, so it will be fun for everybody.”
It will also be fun for Suzuki when he gets back home after the first two games to see his daughter and get to play in front of the hometown fans at the Bell Centre for the first time as a father.
“You kind of just go out there and you get all of a sudden a jolt of energy from the crowd,” he said. “It’s pretty spectacular what happened last year and hopefully get more home games than we did last year. It’s just so fun to play there.
“I think we can use our home crowd to our advantage,” he added. “I expect it to be a loud building in Tampa, but it’s defnitely going to be louder here.”
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