With just over one week remaining in Montreal Canadiens training camp, Juraj Slafkovsky finally asserted himself.
Against a Toronto Maple Leafs team that iced its top two lines, three of its top-six defencemen and its starting goaltender, the 6-foot-4, 238-pound left winger looked the part of the player who was taken first overall by the Canadiens at the NHL Draft this past July. He was noticeable on nearly every one of his 19 shifts, came oh-so-close to scoring his first goal on multiple occasions, made a strong play to the net to notch his first assist, led his side with eight shot attempts, threw a hit and registered a takeaway.
Slafkovsky earned one point on the scoresheet, and several more with Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis.
“I found he had a lot of jump, a lot more confidence with the puck and, with where he was on the ice, you could tell he was in the game,” St. Louis said after the Canadiens lost 5-1 to the Maple Leafs to fall to 0-5 in the preseason.
"Sometimes it takes a couple of games to understand the speed of the game and adjust to our concepts,” he added.
Whether or not a couple more will reveal if Slafkovsky is ready to start the season in Montreal is the question.
There’s merit to the idea of keeping him in Montreal beyond the preseason —regardless of his production (or lack thereof) — to see what he can do when it actually matters. Slafkovsky vaulted into pole position at the draft by dramatically upping his game to lead Team Slovakia in scoring at both the Olympics and world championship, which contrasted with his somewhat underwhelming offensive results with TPS Turku in the uber-defensive Finnish Liiga last season. It could be worth a look to see if he’d step up similarly to start his NHL career.
St. Louis intimated that the final preseason games against more NHL-laden lineups might provide the proper environment to obtain the type of information necessary to make the right call on Slafkovsky before the regular season gets underway, though he didn’t go as far as to guarantee they would.