Player Discussion The Slaf Thread - Parabolic Growth Edition

[GrandBison]

You mean like when we discussed Caufield contract at the same date last year?

 

[Victoire HuGo]

Sacrament de calisse with threads like this

He's signed for the next 9 years.

Better accept it now, he aint going anywhere
and hes f***ing 20 years old. Even Caufield hadnt reached the NHL yet
And it's not like it's 11 million like all the leaf guys
FFS I hate this place sometimes

I guess I made my thread title too clickbaity

People have been arguing before the ink was even dry that this was a mistake. I figured I'd actually bring some facts to the table and some perspective before hitting the panic button but I guess the timing of my thread and the length of it made people skip over all the points I was trying to make.

You mean like when we discussed Caufield contract at the same date last year?

I was arguing the same thing last year that his overall game had improved and he was coming off a surgery. Premature take rarely age well

 

[BLONG7]

Sacrament de calisse with threads like this

He's signed for the next 9 years.

Better accept it now, he aint going anywhere
and hes f***ing 20 years old. Even Caufield hadnt reached the NHL yet
And it's not like it's 11 million like all the leaf guys
FFS I hate this place sometimes

We have a fan base with a lot of highs and lows.........and are way to reactive eh.
The haters on Slaf might even be the same guys who think Dobes is Ken Dryden this morning......

We have become like the Leaf fans.......we have. Too many high and lows and not enough patience to wait and see.

 

[BLONG7]

Kids get paid way too much for doing Jack shit and it’s pathetic on both sides. I don’t fault him , I’d take the money too.

He doesn’t even look like he cares

That's one perception.
The other is, behind the scenes, he is one of the first on the ice in practice, and one of the last off in practice......his team mates love his efforts.

The kid is going to be a beast...........that said he has had some pretty tough moments this season.

Again.........he is 20 !!! Most don't play in the league until 20-22 and he has played 100 games already.

 

[sandviper]

First off, he’s still on his ELC so way too early to worry about the contract.

He also isn’t struggling the way he did at this point last year. He’s not dominating like he ended the year, sure, but he hasn’t been complete dogshit either.

 

[Frank Drebin]

Is he getting gifted pp time? I don’t get to watch as much as i like but i saw pp1 with hutson, suzuki , caufield (and armia?) all snapping it around and then slaf looking like he was the coaches kid.

 

[Victoire HuGo]

Is he getting gifted pp time? I don’t get to watch as much as i like but i saw pp1 with hutson, suzuki , caufield (and armia?) all snapping it around and then slaf looking like he was the coaches kid.

He's averaged 3:13 mins a game on PP

 

[Frank Drebin]

He's averaged 3:13 mins a game on PP

Yeah, is he the best option?

 

[Justin11]

The impatience of this fan base lol
Kid is only 20 and still on his ELC.

Let's find a player or coach to $hit on, just because.

 

[Egresch]

There is no reason to panic:
- his contract did not even start yet
- Habs have been looking for player who can complement CC&Suzuki for years. He already proved he can, so saying he is just complementary is non-sense
- he is just 20 ffs
- MSL has worked really hard to dig his confidence playing him with Dach for like 20 games, so was slowly coming back
- too much distraction off-ice with all commercials ... He said, he likes US roadtrips, because nobody cares about him (unlike Slovakia or Montreal)
- he has new hot girlfriend, I bet he loses some of his explosiveness there

 

[Lshap]

The impatience of this fan base lol
Kid is only 20 and still on his ELC.

Let's find a player or coach to $hit on, just because.

Yes, he's 20, way too soon to draw conclusions, but not too soon to evaluate his performance. We can be patient while still criticizing and setting expectations... although we do tend to swing too far to one side or the other...lol.

 

[elmaco]

Yeah he's 20 and not McDavid, nothing to see here.

 

[nhlfan9191]

There is no reason to panic:
- his contract did not even start yet
- Habs have been looking for player who can complement CC&Suzuki for years. He already proved he can, so saying he is just complementary is non-sense
- he is just 20 ffs
- MSL has worked really hard to dig his confidence playing him with Dach for like 20 games, so was slowly coming back
- too much distraction off-ice with all commercials ... He said, he likes US roadtrips, because nobody cares about him (unlike Slovakia or Montreal)
- he has new hot girlfriend, I bet he loses some of his explosiveness there

Slafkovsky was playing like a finished product at just 19 for a majority of last season. Typical of Montreal fans, once the level has been raised, so have the expectations forever. It was the exact same thing with Carey Price. He came out hot as a rookie already looking like a starter and the moment he came back down to earth and started having inconsistent stretches, our fans were ready to drive him to the airport. People need to relax on this one for now.

 

[RationalExpectations]

The impatience of this fan base lol
Kid is only 20 and still on his ELC.

Let's find a player or coach to $hit on, just because.

When you sign a player to a big contract you increase expectations, it seems quite obvious. Imagine McDavid scoring 40 points a year on that contract or Evans on his current contract, would nt the fanbase be right to criticize McDavid and praise Evans ? The more you are paid in a cap world, the less the rest of your teammates are, so the hardest it is to imrpove the Team Overall.

 

[RationalExpectations]

Slafkovsky was playing like a finished product at just 19 for a majority of last season. Typical of Montreal fans, once the level has been raised, so have the expectations forever. It was the exact same thing with Carey Price. He came out hot as a rookie already looking like a starter and the moment he came back down to earth and started having inconsistent stretches, our fans were ready to drive him to the airport. People need to relax on this one for now.

The question is not about his current play or whether MTL should trade him, it s about the contract related to his current inability to raise his game.

If you think he won t be a finished product in the next 3 years, you wasted 3 years on an expensive contract whereas you may have been able to postpone this contract by 2/3 years via a Bridge with more certainty about what he really is.

 

[26Mats]

Too early to comment on this thread.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

When you sign a player to a big contract you increase expectations, it seems quite obvious. Imagine McDavid scoring 40 points a year on that contract or Evans on his current contract, would nt the fanbase be right to criticize McDavid and praise Evans ? The more you are paid in a cap world, the less the rest of your teammates are, so the hardest it is to imrpove the Team Overall.

he is paid 900 k on cap keep the grievances for next year if he still sucks

 

[xposbrad]

I don’t see a consistent goal scorer that is going to develop into that 7.5m player. Not when you have guys performing far better with less playing time (Heineman). I get some fanboys love every move the team makes, but if there's a deal to swap him that makes sense before other teams realize he's not worth 7.5m either then I would do it. Next year, if he's putting up these numbers with no big improvement we have a huge problem.

 

[Rapala]

Yes, he's 20, way too soon to draw conclusions, but not too soon to evaluate his performance. We can be patient while still criticizing and setting expectations... although we do tend to swing too far to one side or the other...lol.

It's fair to compare his progress to players who were in that same boat.
Suzuki was under a microscope before his contract ever kicked in.
It's not like Slaf has to fix a zillion things but he does have to perfect some of his technique.

Get the puck out of his feet and get those feet moving would be a good start.
Marty wants him to play fast but his recent game can be described as lumbering at best.

When he was playing well last season his line was a multi-point threat every game but there were no consequences if they got caught out.
Now they are struggling to create chances but the line is also tasked with being more responsible defensively.

Slaf is struggling to put the two pieces together.
Plenty of games left this year and all summer to work on details.

 

[OldCraig71]

I am going to pump the brakes on being too critical of him just yet and yeah, I would like to see more compete level from him and some more physical play and things will get better for him.

I made the mistake of calling out MSL about Xhekaj and now we see that he is a much better player, arguably one of our better defenders over the last month and there is no reason to doubt that the coaching staff will get Slakovsky going as well.

We all want him to succeed but we are often guilty of not seeing the forest for the trees and I am one of the worst in that area. He is a big clumsy kid who is struggling but the team around him is playing well and he will come around.

 

[Victoire HuGo]

I don’t see a consistent goal scorer that is going to develop into that 7.5m player. Not when you have guys performing far better with less playing time (Heineman). I get some fanboys love every move the team makes, but if there's a deal to swap him that makes sense before other teams realize he's not worth 7.5m either then I would do it. Next year, if he's putting up these numbers with no big improvement we have a huge problem.

What do you envision as his ceiling? As a 67-70 pts forward he'd be in yhr norm at that salary as I covered in part B of my post.

 

[sampollock]

pressure will come next year, but that is what happens when you get pd.

 

[habdynasty]

His personal troll has returned. Coward.

 

[xposbrad]

What do you envision as his ceiling? As a 67-70 pts forward he'd be in yhr norm at that salary as I covered in part B of my post.

That's his max ceiling if he keeps getting this playing time (which I think he won't because he is not producing enough to warrant it). Let me ask you something, Heineman, who plays 4-5 minutes less per game, if he was given the same PP time and playing time, would he put up better numbers than Slaf. Yes or no?

Slaf's skating is not looking good lately, I don't see him as strong on the puck as I hoped yet, and I don't see him going end to end to start offensive plays. I don't think he's bad, I just think that we jumped the gun with that contract. I also think his numbers will start dropping even more when other players start getting more ice time.

 

[Yoor]

The impatience of this fan base lol
Kid is only 20 and still on his ELC.

Let's find a player or coach to $hit on, just because.

I don't care about the contract not my money...is it horrible to want to see the effort that garnered him success last year? He just isn't moving his feet. Last year he was a beast along the boards...what changed? I know he can do it..he showed it last year...we just want to see that again.