Nick Suzuki closed the gap on Sebastian Aho, dropped to one knee and put the finishing touches on one of his most desperate performances of the season with his strongest defensive play of the night.

Suzuki’s only block of Sunday’s game came with his Montreal Canadiens barely clinging to a 3-1 lead, with just under three minutes to play against a Carolina Hurricanes team that had put them in a spin cycle all night.

It came with the Hurricanes’ net empty, in a five-on-six situation, with the Canadiens burning every ounce of gas remaining in their reserve tank, and it was no coincidence it came from him. Because no Canadien has come up with bigger plays at either end of the ice this season than their captain, who’s in the process of simultaneously becoming the team’s first Selke Trophy winner since Guy Carbonneau in 1989 and its first 100-point player since Mats Naslund in 1986.

Naslund, who had 110 points for the Canadiens the year they won their second-to-last Stanley Cup, wasn’t exactly a defensive maven nor shot-blocker. He didn’t have to be, though, because Carbonneau left a lot of goals and points on the table on his way to finally being crowned the best defensive forward in the NHL three years later, when the Canadiens returned to the Stanley Cup Final.

In the decades that have passed since, no player for the Canadiens has blended Naslund and Carbonneau’s skills as well as Suzuki, who registered points 89, 90 and 91 on Sunday before making his 58^th block of the season to keep himself at plus-2 on the night and plus-32 through 73 games.

“Those are the little plays you need to win,” assistant captain Mike Matheson told reporters at PNC Arena after the Canadiens closed out their fifth consecutive regulation win. “At this time of the season, going into the playoffs, that’s what you have to do.”

You must make small plays and big plays all the same, and Suzuki does that every single game.

He sets the standard, and the Canadiens follow, even if on this night they blocked 31 shots before Suzuki got his leg on Aho’s last attempt.

When they needed a rescue breath earlier, down 1-0, Suzuki provided it by skating the length of the ice to score his 25^th goal of the season.

Lane Hutson stretched a three-zone pass up to Cole Caufield, and Caufield drew coverage in to lay the puck up for Suzuki to dunk it right as he arrived in front of Frederik Andersen.

Suzuki returned the favour when he set up Caufield’s 46^th goal of the season a little over 11 minutes later.

And then, in the dying seconds of that middle frame, Suzuki drew a faceoff back to the point, drove to the net, took a shot, and then buried his own rebound to put the game out of reach.

They were two of a team-leading five shots on net the 26-year-old registered over his 20:17 spread over 22 shifts of this second game in 22 hours, which was played in a different time zone than the one the Canadiens were in the night prior.

Suzuki was desperate, and so were the tired Canadiens. Especially as the Hurricanes pressed and pulverized them early.

“Not an easy team to play against here on a back-to-back,” said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis. “We had a tough time getting going, and not because we weren’t engaged. We just had trouble executing after their forecheck. We weren’t able to get forechecking ourselves. When you don’t have the puck, it’s hard to gain momentum…

“When you play Carolina, you expect a team that’ll surely have more shots than you, and you’re going to have to for sure weather a storm, and then you have to capitalize on chances when they’re over-aggressive.”

That’s what the Canadiens did.

When they bent, Jakub Dobes kept them from breaking.

The goaltender, who made a career-high 41 saves in a win over the Hurricanes at the Bell Centre to start the week, made another 34 against them Sunday. He stopped 33 consecutive shots after allowing the game’s first two goals Tuesday, and he stopped 26 straight after Andrei Svechnikov ripped one past him on the power play to start the scoring in the final game of the week.

In between, Dobes saved 25 shots in a 2-1 win over the red-hot Columbus Blue Jackets.

“He’s really finding himself as a goalie in this league,” said Suzuki, “and he’s been there for us every single time he’s been in the net.”

In front of Dobes, no player has been more consistent at both ends than Suzuki.

Playing every shift against either the best defensive players in the league or the most offensively potent ones, he’s dominated his matchups, never going more than two consecutive games without a point and rarely allowing anyone to get the over on him.

As a result, Suzuki is already two points up on the 89 he posted in 82 games last season. He ranks seventh in league scoring and is on pace to score 11 more points over the final nine games. And we know that Aho shot won’t be the last one he blocks this season.

It was Suzuki’s final play in a game that highlighted how he’s become one of the most complete players in the world.