In Vancouver they call the Zurich Pius Suter Swiss Army Knife

 

There are very good ice hockey players in the National League, world-class players with an illustrious NHL past. Some people wonder why they are active in Switzerland instead of in the glittering world of the NHL, where the millions are flowing; for example with Dominik Kubalik, the former league top scorer who recently stormed for Ambri-Piotta and who has already scored 30 goals this season in the NHL. Or with Denis Malgin, the currently ailing number 1 center of the ZSC Lions.

There are a variety of reasons for being one of the almost 1,100 players who play in the NHL each season. Last but not least, it’s about Fortune; also about being in the right place at the right time. But most importantly, you have to find a niche, a reason why the coach can’t leave you out of the lineup.

In North American parlance, “one-trick pony” is the name given to the type of player who can do one thing particularly well. In Kubalik’s case it is: productivity on offense. But last season he produced just 15 points in 74 games for Ottawa. It was too meager a return to be able to maintain their place in the league. A scorer who doesn’t score? Get rid of it! The next talented and generally cheaper soldier of fortune is already waiting for his chance.

A clever head with the ability to realistically assess his performance volume

Pius Suter also has a profile that is characterized by offensive qualities. In the 2019/20 season, which was canceled due to the pandemic, he became the league’s top scorer in the ZSC; no Swiss player in the National League played more power plays than him.

Now Suter, 28, has just entered his fifth NHL season as a player for the Vancouver Canucks. To date, he has never scored more than 15 goals in any of the 82-game qualifying phase. It’s not a brand that keeps general managers lining up for him. But Suter is a smart person with the ability to realistically assess his performance volume – that’s not common practice in professional sports. He knows that he can’t turn the big wheel offensively in the NHL.

But Suter doesn’t have to worry about his future. Because he has become a kind of everyone’s darling who is praised everywhere. From the coaches, management and nerds who spend their days breaking down this complex game of convoluted algorithms.

Swiss Army Knife is what Suter calls it at his current employer in Vancouver. It’s not a particularly imaginative name given its origins, but it’s correct. A pocket knife can do many things: cutting, pulling corks, opening cans and serving as a screwdriver. Suter has a similar polyvalence; Since moving to the NHL in fall 2020, he has become a player who can actually take on any role in the attack. Like a chameleon that adapts perfectly to its surroundings.

Above all, he has become one of the leading experts in the game of shorthanded players. Last winter, his box play stats were so good that some analysts were stunned to call it an anomaly, as if they had just witnessed the first solar eclipse. Rick Tocchet, the head coach of the Canucks, praises his pupil’s game intelligence. And this fall, Suter is already spending an average of more than three minutes per game in box play. No other striker on the team receives as much trust in this regard.

 

Sometimes it’s “like in the movies” – Suter sees a lot of poverty in addition to the arenas

How do you achieve the metamorphosis from the Sun King of the ZSC power play to a box play specialist? “Well,” says Suter, he’s just trying to get more playing time, and that’s where the outnumbered game comes in handy. «It is an opportunity for me to take on more responsibility. And being on the ice in game-deciding moments,” explains Suter over the phone from Chicago – the Canucks are currently on a long road trip.

His younger brother Kaj was also one of the finest boxing players in the second-tier Swiss League before he ended his professional career last summer at the age of 26 after a series of concussions and returned to his home club Wallisellen, which was active in amateur sports.

Is the love of boxing in the Suters’ DNA? Or is it simply clever opportunism? Pius Suter says: “We accept the role we are given. It’s the case everywhere in the world that you have to work your way from the back to the front.”

Suter has a certain sobriety about him, that’s his style. He’s not a faker or a self-promoter. If Wayne Gretzky is called The Great One and José Mourinho is called The Special One, then Pius Suter is The Humble One. He has been married for a little over a year; Off the ice, with his glasses and his inconspicuous demeanor, he looks like a sociology student. In Zurich he always rode his bike to training, and he sometimes does the same in Vancouver.

Vancouver is his third NHL stop after Chicago and Detroit; in each of these metropolises he has observed the enormous discrepancy of a collapsing society. Here are the pompous NHL arenas where the best tickets can easily cost $500. A few meters away the decay, poverty and misery of the tent cities of those people who have lost their shelter. “It’s like in the movies” sometimes, says Suter. It always makes you aware of your own privileges.

Suter signed a two-year contract with the Canucks in the summer of 2023 that will pay him $1.6 million. Almost half of it goes to taxes and duties. At that point it was a significant loss of wages. But the transfer was worth it: Suter and Vancouver have so far been a close relationship in which the striker has been able to increase his market value.

 

After losing the playoff in the 2011 play-off final, fan riots broke out

The question is what happens next for him. The Canucks exceeded all expectations last season, winning a playoff series for just the second time in the last 13 years (against Nashville).

In 2011, Vancouver was just one win away from their first Stanley Cup triumph against Boston. The general manager at the time was Mike Gillis, who later appeared in Geneva as probably the most expensive “consultant” in the history of Swiss ice hockey when the Hugh Quennec era at Servette was about to end. After losing the playoff against Boston in 2011, there were riots in Vancouver; The Canadian NHL clubs have been waiting for a Stanley Cup winner from their ranks for 31 years.

The Canucks today seem a long way from being a serious title contender, despite the formidable development of the talents Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson. But Pius Suter says he would like to stay in Vancouver, he has learned to appreciate the city and it offers a lot in terms of cuisine. There have been no contract discussions yet. It is conceivable that little will happen in this regard until the beginning of March.

Suter doesn’t need to worry about that. The chameleon is not only adaptable, but also valuable – and has found its destination in the NHL jungle.