About a week after Wisconsin’s star defenseman Ryan Suter decided that the time was right to take the next step and join the professional ranks of the NHL, the NHL decided that the time was right to stop playing hockey. Despite the fact that he may not get the opportunity to play hockey at the highest level this season, Suter made the most logical move available to him at the time.
Quick show of hands, how many of you out there have been offered well over a million dollars to do something you love? Not surprisingly there aren’t a whole lot of hands in the air, so can you blame Suter for jumping at that kind of opportunity?
As a fan of Wisconsin hockey, I hoped that Suter would see the impending work stoppage in the NHL as a key reason in deciding to stay for at least one more season. Unfortunately, the labor negotiations had the opposite effect as Suter needed to sign a contract before the current deal expired and a new one was worked out with a far lower rookie pay scale.
Suter took the money and ran. He’d have been crazy not to.
Much like Devin Harris just three months ago, Suter had to take this opportunity because another year in college would not have made him any more valuable than he already is.
Sure it can be argued that Suter has some areas of his game that need to be worked on. He doesn’t have the best offensive skills around, he takes dumb penalties from time to time, and, well those are the biggest two. But it can also be argued that in the NHL not all defensemen need to be offensive weapons to be effective, and that dumb penalties are more or less part of the game of hockey.
The little bit of seasoning he would have gained by returning to school for another season certainly couldn’t outweigh the amount of money Suter stood to lose if he didn’t jump at his chance now.
Currently the NHL rookie maximum contract for a first round draft pick is $1.24 million per season. That is the amount that Suter held out for and is now set to receive from the Nashville Predators. Along with the $620,000 signing bonus, it’s a pretty nice incentive to leave Wisconsin for greener pastures.
What really makes the deal worth taking now is the speculation that the rookie maximum will be significantly lower when the NHL powers that be finally come up with a new collective bargaining agreement. The figure that is floating around is $850,000 per year.
A little bit of simple math shows that Suter could have lost nearly $1.2 million over the length of his three year deal. So heading to the NHL came down to a fairly easy business decision.
Financial gains aside, Suter was just plain ready to make the jump to the next level of hockey. His play earned him all-WCHA third team honors as well as an all-rookie team award. On the world stage he had already been recognized as one of the brightest stars after being named the top defenseman at the 2002 World Under-18 Championships, as well as earning the 2002-03 Bob Johnson award given to U.S. players who excel at the international level.
At times his play is often overlooked because Suter has such a knack for being in the right place all the time, and you just can’t teach that. As a defenseman it was often better that he wasn’t being highlighted because it meant that his mistakes were few and far between.
While Suter wasn’t much of a goal scoring threat in his time with the Badgers, he anchored a veteran group of defensemen that consistently pestered their opponents’ offensive weapons. For all the goals he prevented, Suter can be forgiven for not scoring more.
The stat that really jumps out is his plus 19 rating. Wisconsin was flat out a better team when Suter was on the ice than when he was off of it. Chances are that Nashville will be the same way.
While the only thing that should have made Suter think twice about his decision was the lock-out in the NHL, even that would prove to be a small concern.
With the NHL still trying to pick up the pieces of their labor negotiations, Suter will be able to continue his development in Milwaukee. The Admirals, one of Nashville’s minor league affiliate teams, are arguably one of the best run organizations in minor league hockey. Therefore, playing in Milwaukee will give Suter a more than suitable learning environment if there is no NHL season.
He also will get to keep the signing bonus no matter what happens.
The Badger hockey program should just be thankful that the draw of playing for the same school that his father and two uncles played for was enough to convince him to don a cardinal and white jersey for at least one season. His presence on the ice was one of the biggest reasons that the Wisconsin hockey team made such a dramatic jump from the season before that.
Like Dany Heatley before him, Suter could have made an impact in the NHL as soon as he was drafted. Like Heatley, Suter instead chose to come to Wisconsin, even if it was only for a brief time. Like with Heatley, Badger fans should be happy that they at least got to see a glimpse of one of hockey’s brightest young stars in Suter, because it was time for him to move on.
