Ryan Suter played for over 29 minutes in a preseason game

[Pointteen]

Those minutes were probably at 75% effort right?

Great conditioning training

 

[ijuka]

I mean, Ryan Suter plays for 30min a night some seasons.

When you play the D position in an economical fashion, the best players can play such minutes.

 

[WTFMAN99]

I think there are a couple of players who could get away with it (like a 2OT or something). He's one of them.

I'd put Doughty, McDavid and possibly Jones in there as well. Prime Keith could too. Basically the guys who have proven they are either super efficient decision-makers or efficient skaters. Preferably both.

Prime Keith in 2OT or 3OT had stupid ice time.

 

[P10p]

Suter has made it clear he is back to 100% after playing all of last year with some lingering effects. Exciting for Wild fans to hear. This guy has been aging sooooo well.

 

[StreetHawk]

That is crazy you shouldn't risk playing a defenseman that much for meaningless games.

Their top 4 is going to be Suter, Brodin in the left with Dumba and Spurgeon on the right.

The 3rd pairing has to be capable of playing double digit minutes a game?

 

[57special]

I've been begging the coaching staff to cut back on his minutes for years. With a top 4 of he, Spurgeon, Dumba, and Brodin, and a reasonably good bottom pairing, there is no excuse for playing him so much.

He usually looks quicker and better in the first third of the season, then slows down after that. Suter is actually a good, efficient skater when rested and playing on two healthy feet. Sometimes i think "hockey people" are just dumb. It's about time a new guard came in, like they have in baseball and basketball.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

Cool. They barely beat the Avs "last look before we cut the roster down" crew. Must be super satisfying.

No reason to be flippant and disrespectful.

 

[2Pair]

I've been begging the coaching staff to cut back on his minutes for years. With a top 4 of he, Spurgeon, Dumba, and Brodin, and a reasonably good bottom pairing, there is no excuse for playing him so much.

He usually looks quicker and better in the first third of the season, then slows down after that. Suter is actually a good, efficient skater when rested and playing on two healthy feet. Sometimes i think "hockey people" are just dumb. It's about time a new guard came in, like they have in baseball and basketball.

Yes, the "hockey people" That play their best players more minutes than the worse players are just dumb. What an awful take.

 

[PredsV82]

For all the crap we Preds fans give Suter, hes consistent and durable.

Seeing Phaneuf bought out and probably done while Suter still plays 30 a night makes me laugh when I remember there was a lot of debate over whether the Preds should have taken Phaneuf at 7 in 2003...

 

[ricky0034]

that's only a couple minutes more than his average ice time in the regular season last year

pretty much the whole point of preseason for vets is getting back into game shape,that's not gonna happen for him playing 20 minutes or whatever

 

[Jugitsu]

Suter can definitely take the heavy minutes. Especially if his leg is back to 100%, which it wasn't last season. Playing "only" 24-minutes a night might mess up his feel and rhythm. I don't know for sure why he seems to do worse with less ice time. Might be a figment of my imagination.

The thing is, I'd love to see his minutes diminished to 24-25 minutes a game. I think he could truly thrive even more if he adjusted to playing far less. The other side of that is that I want to see more from Dumba, Brodin and Spurgeon. Obviously Spurgeon is his partner, so he sees plenty of action already. But Dumba is truly our shining star and I'd love to see him get more responsibility. We saw how ugly it could get when both Spurgeon and Suter were out and Dumba was tossed into a role he did not have much experience on.

The Wild truly has one of the better top 4's in the league and there's absolutely no reason to rely so heavily on one guy. I hope the ice time distribution from last season is something we're going to see more of this year.