Habs forward Nick Suzuki comments on the Jesperi Kotkaniemi offer sheet situation
It was a wild weeked for the Montreal Canadiens and RFA center Jesperi Kotkaniemi after the 21-year-old signed an offer sheet for 1 year at a whopping $6.1M with the Carolina Hurricanes.
While most fans who have been following the situation on social media have taken a firm stance that the Habs will almost certainly decline to match Carolina's offer sheet, at least one Canadien, Nick Suzuki, hopes that the Habs will match.
During a recent appearance on the Habs Tonight podcast with co-host and former NHLer Dale Weise, Suzuki revealed that he and his teammates would love to have Kotkaniemi back next season, speculating that management would like to retain him as well. You can see the full clip in the tweet provided below:
I suppose that will put to rest any speculation that Canadiens players might harbor some resentment towards Kotkaniemi for electing to sign the offer sheet and essentially volunteer to leave Montreal.
As Suzuki stated in the clip, that sort of money isn't an amount that you'd thumb your nose at and I'm sure that there are a lot of young RFA's who would have done the same, were they in Kotkaniemi's shoes.
The Habs still have until Friday, September 3rd to decide whether or not they'll match Carolina's offer sheet, as Carolina did when the Habs offer sheeted Canes forward Sebastian Aho back in 2019.
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Taylor Hall | 3 | - | 3 | |
| Brayden Point | 3 | - | 3 | |
| Brock Nelson | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Bryan Rust | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Pavel Zacha | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Quinn Hughes | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Carter Verhaeghe | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Erik Karlsson | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Elias Lindholm | - | 3 | 3 | |
| David Pastrnak | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Tim Stutzle | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Adam Gaudette | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Dylan Holloway | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Brad Marchand | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Aleksander Barkov | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sam Bennett | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sean Couturier | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Alex DeBrincat | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jack Drury | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Cutter Gauthier | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Complete stats | ||||
| STANDINGS 2024-2025 | ||||||
TOP 10 | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | |
Jets | 23 | 18 | 5 | - | 36 | |
Hurricanes | 22 | 16 | 5 | 1 | 33 | |
Wild | 22 | 14 | 4 | 4 | 32 | |
Devils | 25 | 15 | 8 | 2 | 32 | |
Capitals | 22 | 15 | 6 | 1 | 31 | |
Golden Knights | 23 | 14 | 6 | 3 | 31 | |
Maple Leafs | 22 | 13 | 7 | 2 | 28 | |
Flames | 23 | 12 | 7 | 4 | 28 | |
Panthers | 23 | 13 | 9 | 1 | 27 | |
Kings | 23 | 12 | 8 | 3 | 27 | |
| Conference | Cumulative | ||||||