There aren’t very many defensemen in this draft who are more high-risk, high-reward than Suomi. He’s an incredibly quick little bugger who can burn you from a standstill with his acceleration. His edgework is also excellent, allowing him to curl or stop on a dime to escape forecheckers. Mobility looks effortless at times. He plays on his toes constantly and displays a ton of energy, confidence and enthusiasm. There’s an incredible amount of escapability and deception to his game, utilizing crossovers, look-offs, head fakes, stutter steps and abrupt changes of speed and direction to fool opponents and create space for himself. At his best, he’s the type of defenseman with enough skill to exit dangerous forecheck pressure and carry the puck end-to-end. Usually gets the job done without the puck in open ice thanks to his gaps and determination, but he has a lot of trouble separating the man from the puck once the play slows down in his own end due to his small size and lack of bulk. The main issues for him right now, though, are his decision-making and his risk-taking, and they can be big ones. Turnovers are simply far too common. It’s nice that he’s confident and wants the puck on his stick, but it gets him into trouble because he frequently tries to do too much all by himself. He’ll try to beat opponents one-on-two or one-on-three and fail repeatedly, enough times that you’ll want to tear your hair out. But then a few shifts later he’ll do something amazing and pull you to the edge of your seat. Suomi has the pure skill to be a premier puck-moving defenseman at the NHL level, but whether or not he can improve his awareness and decision-making to ever get to that point is a million-dollar question for scouts. Either way, drafting him is definitely a risk worth taking, and it will be interesting to see how much risk a team is willing to accept with him.

– FCHockey’s 2021 NHL Draft Guide