Ryan Suter not thrilled with Jonas Brodin as defense partner

There appears to be some controversy with Minnesota Wild All-Star defenseman Ryan Suter the coaching staff’s decision to change his defense partner.  

Suter was not thrilled with being paired with Jonas Brodin at Monday’s practice – enough to publicly question coach Mike Yeo on the choice.

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The report comes from Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

This is no swipe at Brodin because Suter respects him as a player, but Suter’s had a solid start to this season, especially offensively, and he thinks playing with a right-shot like Spurgeon gives him more options in all three zones. On skating with Brodin, Suter said, “Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on there. He decided to change things up. I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

According to the story, when asked if he is OK with the move Suter said, “No. We’ll talk about it. We’ll figure it out. Maybe for certain points you have to do this to play against certain guys and situations. I know Scandy’s coming back, so I don’t think it’s going to be an end a result. He’s the coach.”

There’s also this tidbit from the Star Tribune of some comments from Suter when cameras were done rolling.

Suter did make very clear when the cameras were off that he will do whatever it takes to win, and if the coaches think this is the best way to go, he has no problem with it.

Eye on Hockey explains, from an advanced stats perspective, Suter and Brodin as a pair against Suter and other Wild defensemen. 

In more than 2,600 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey with Suter and Brodin paired together since the start of the 2012 season the Wild have outscored their opponents 83-73 and have attempted 49 percent of the shot attempts that were taken during that time. In 2,100 minutes of hockey when Suter has been paired any other defender on the ice the Wild own a 96-83 goals edge and are a 51 percent Corsi team. They are slightly better from a possession standpoint and they score more when Suter is away from Brodin, but they also give up more goals.

Suter is currently on pace for a career year with 20 points through the first 22 games of the season. He leads the NHL in average time on ice per-game at 28:01. The Wild have gone 1-4-2 in their last seven games and sits at 11-7-4 on the season. Their next game is at the Chicago Blackhawks on Dec. 1. 

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper