Alexander Suzdalev

Ian Moran’s Thoughts: Suzdalev is a bit on an anomaly as he is a left shot European who plays on his strong side left wing. He has a good skating base with a powerful stride and good edge control. During offensive zone entries we have seen him handle hard passes or bouncing pucks while at full speed and still be able to get hard accurate snap shots off that hit the net. There are times when he gets himself in trouble trying to do too much with the puck in 1on1 situations, but when he has the mentality to shoot first in 5on5 situations he makes things happen and keeps the offence alive. We like his ability to shoot while his feet are moving and he has a very nice quick release curl and drag snap shot that catches goalies leaning. He is a poised puck distributor while on the power play, showing that he does not need to stickhandle to make a play and the ability to look in one direction until a defender moves his stick and then quickly snap a flat pass on the tape. He is a big body that did not see much TOI during the recent U18 World’s, but we see him as a young player with a good work ethic who will continue training and filling out until he’s playing in North America around 205lbs. At that point he has a chance to be an NHLer.