A lot of his improvement has seen him using his size and weight to better protect the puck, but he’s also playing some really smart hockey.
Article content
What a difference a few months make.
Early this season, the fans who doubted Juraj Slafkovsky — and there were no shortage of them — were busy saying ‘I told you so.’ From the moment he was drafted by the Canadiens first overall in 2022, the grumblers were complaining that the Habs got the wrong guy and, let’s be honest, in his first season here, the Slovakian winger looked like he wasn’t ready to play in the best hockey league in the world.
Advertisement 2
Article content
Article content
He too often had his head down and even though he’s big — he’s 6-foot-3 and weighs 230 pounds — last season he all-too-often took a pounding on the ice and didn’t seem to see the hits coming. And he wasn’t producing. By the time he went down with a season-ending knee injury after 39 games, he had only four goals and six assists. Of course he was a rookie and was only 18 but still. It wasn’t looking great and many of us thought that maybe Habs management had made a mistake by not sending him down to spend his first year in North America with the Laval Rocket.
And it didn’t look much better in the early going this season. As my colleague Stu Cowan underlined in his column on Slaf this week, he had two goals and seven points after 29 games. But then everything changed. Head coach Martin St. Louis put Slafkovsky on the first line alongside Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki and virtually overnight, Slafkovsky began to look not just like a real NHL player but like a real good NHL player.
With his assist in Denver Tuesday on a goal by Suzuki, Slafkovsky hit the 40-point mark for the season, giving him the record as the teenager on the Habs with the most points in a season in franchise history. Think about that for a moment. The Canadiens have been in this business since 1909 and no teen player has ever done what Slafkovsky’s done! And the season ain’t over.
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
Advertisement 4
Article content
He got another point Thursday night versus the Philadelphia Flyers, rocketing a hard seeing-eye pass to Suzuki in the goalmouth, leading to Suzuki’s 30th goal this season, a personal milestone for the captain. And that’s the way Slaf has been playing over the past few months.
Yes a lot of it is him using his size and weight to protect the puck, but he’s also playing some really smart hockey.
“Honestly that Slafbustsky slander … he’s proven everyone wrong,” said Phillip Alexander, a Canadiens fan from Toronto who came with his family to see the Habs-Flyers game Thursday. “He’s struggled a little bit, but oh my God, he’s just a big kid. I can’t wait to see what he’s got going (in the future). He’s a 19-year-old kid. My little brother’s 19. It’s crazy what he’s doing. I love watching him play. … He’s manhandling grown men and I love to see it.”
It’s pretty exciting. I mean when is the last time the CH had a real live power forward with skill in his prime? It’s been a second! As in maybe decades. Sure it is still early days. He is set to turn 20 on Saturday. So only time will tell what his ceiling is but right now it looks pretty darn high and I’m just dying to see what this kid can do in the playoffs when the going gets tough and the tough getting going as refs put their whistles away.
Advertisement 5
Article content
Of course we haven’t seen much of that playoff thing for a while here. If you take away the crazy run in 2021, Montreal hasn’t won a playoff series since 2015. Counting this year, the team will have missed the playoffs in six of the past nine seasons. That’s pathetic, period. No debate there.
But maybe just maybe, with a little help from the Slaf success story, could Les Boys be knocking at the playoff door next season? Could happen. Suzuki just hit the 30-goal mark for the first time and he is very close to a point-a-game this season. Caufield is scoring fewer goals but is a more complete player.
Add in Lane Hutson and Logan Mailloux to the blue-line corps next season and suddenly the D looks better. But it’s not guaranteed they’ll be in the wild-card discussion next year. This is going to be a huge summer for Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes. In my humble opinion, they have to make a couple of big deals to bring in some help up front.
So the pressure is on. And it’ll be on St. Louis as well. Next season, for the first time, the most quotable coach in years is going to actually have to worry about winning games. But the fact is he’s coached a team short on talent to punch well above its weight. There’s been a lot of one-goal losses this season and any team that can twice beat the mighty Colorado Avalanche has some kind of mojo going on.
And the new improved Slafkovsky is big part of why this team is more competitive than it was last year.
Recommended from Editorial
-
Hidden Game: Surging Canadiens beat Flyers for third straight win
-
What the Puck: Reinbacher reintroduced to pressures of Montreal
Advertisement 6
Article content
Article content