To say Travis Green relies heavily on Brandon Sutter as a shutdown centre would be an understatement. Sutter is the only centre in the NHL who averages more than 17 minutes a game, more than 2 minutes a night on the PK, along with more than 75% of his zone starts in the defensive zone.
In fact, he leads all NHL forwards this season by averaging more than three minutes per game shorthanded.
All that doesn’t even take into account the ridiculous even-strength competition he faces as a byproduct of being the team’s shutdown centre.
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The blue bars for numbers one to three on the top right are significantly past the red line standard— indicating that he’s spent a very high proportion of his ice-time against the opposition’s top three forwards.