Haha that was amazing, Celine taking her sweet time.
But why are we still underrating Slaf? It's not obvious to me that Demidov will be better. He can be of course but we're acting like Hughes finally got the draft right.
And I don't want to seem like I'm picking on you. It's a pretty common feeling in this thread. Slaf can end up being one scary f***ing player. I won't be surprised at all if Slaf is still the crown jewel of this org when all is said and done.
No, you're right.
I love Slaf for sure; I just think when he was drafted, there were some different feelings, and he's a different player to Demidov. For Slaf, it's always been about the potential package, and
if that whole package can come together, look out. He's starting to put it together, but obviously it's a process. I'm not a scout so it's hard for me to see a project player and hope what a guy may become (in Slaf's case) rather than Demidov, who is already insanely skilled and dynamic at this age.
I agree with you that, when it's all said and done, Slaf might be the guy we look back on with the most pride being picked.
I was so disenchanted with our previous development team that it was almost like a "here we go again" type feeling rather than feeling like we just picked our next superstar. Obviously since then Slaf's started blossoming into the player the org and scouts envisioned when they took him and it's been fun to watch.
Last night was just a stark contrast to last year, I guess. Last year, I felt a bit defeated, like the team was settling on safe rather than take a risk to try and bring the next Russian star to Montreal. I'm not going to go into MM vs. DR as it's been beaten to death (and can now reasonably be forgotten about, hopefully) but it just felt good.