Vancouver Canucks sign centre Pius Suter to two-year, $1.6 million AAV contract

It’s another Friday news drop from the Vancouver Canucks and this feels like a pretty good one that’s been long-rumoured to come to fruition.

Patrik Allvin announced that the Canucks have signed 27-year-old Swiss centre Pius Suter to a two-year contract with an average annual value of $1,600,000.

Suter has played 161 games over his three-year NHL career with the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings. Suter has scored at least 14 goals in each of his three NHL seasons and topped-out in 2021-22 with 15 goals and 21 assists in 82 games with the Red Wings.

Last season, Suter played in 79 games with the Wings — he finished with 14 goals and 10 assists and was 46.8% in the faceoff circle. He also holds very strong defensive numbers and should bring the scoring touch as well as being strong in his defensive zone.

His most consistent linemates from last season were Oskar Sundqvist, Lucas Raymond, and Adam Erne — so, you have to believe that he will be able to find more offence on a Canucks team that is loaded with much better bottom-six wingers to help create offence.

Suter will also see time on the penalty kill and was third out of the forwards for shorthanded ice time last year in Detriot — only trailing Andrew Copp and Dylan Larkin in shorthanded minutes.

This is how the Canucks have addressed concerns at the third-line centre position and with a cap hit of $1,600,000, they didn’t have to break the bank to sign Suter either. The Canucks will have some work to do to be cap compliant by the season if Tanner Pearson returns from LTIR but from latest reports, it sounds like Tucker Poolman will be on LTIR.

Signing Suter likely bumps down the recently signed Teddy Blueger down to a fourth-line centre role and that helps the depth of this team immensely.

The best case scenario in this signing is that the Canucks have just signed another 20-goal scorer who finds a new level of offence with better linemates here in Vancouver. There’s not a ton of risk here on this deal and the Canucks locked Suter down for two years.

Tip your cap to Patrik Allvin, folks.