Juraj Slafkovsky - Year Two

[bcv]

The total production is OK recently. But he’s not exploiting opportunities in the Ozone. Track the shifts of an NHL winger and you see they do everything they can with less offensive opportunities than Slaf.

Slaf is letting way too much on the table. Whether it’s not shooting, not taking the puck to the net, or passing to the wrong guy at the wrong time. Even with his sub-par shot release he could do much more.

19 years old player still has things to work on.

Stop the presses…

 

[Adam Michaels]

Slaf has been with Nick and Cole since the Seattle game. So they've been together for 12 games.

Nick has 12 pts in those 12 games (4G, 8A).
Cole has 7 pts in those 12 games (3G, 4A).
Slaf has 6 pts in those 12 games (2G, 4A).

 

[SlafySZN]

Slaf has been with Nick and Cole since the Seattle game. So they've been together for 12 games.

Nick has 12 pts in those 12 games (4G, 8A).
Cole has 7 pts in those 12 games (3G, 4A).
Slaf has 6 pts in those 12 games (2G, 4A).

They were snakebitten the first 5-6 games they were together too.

 

[OldCraig71]

Have any of you had trouble accessing this site today? I couldn't post in or like any threads here today until now. If I got an infraction or a warning there was no message or any form of notification.

 

[Heffyhoof]

That’s a very disingenuous twisting of what he said. Come on.

Thanks for pointing it out. I wasn't celebrating anything, I was providing additional context in terms of the complaint of Slaf's lack of production. Not surprising that the posters who couldn't care about context misinterpret my post and then all like each others circle jerk.

 

[ReHabs]

That’s a very disingenuous twisting of what he said. Come on.

What did I twist? Comparing Slafkovsky's production with Newhook who's been out injured for 13 games, and praising it, is plain silly.

But they're "incidental" points, as his post suggests. So, whenever he produces, it's basically just pure luck. However, when he doesn't produce, it's automatically attributable to poor performances on the ice.

I didn't mean it in any nasty way but I accept that my reputation here might precede me. Slaf had a scrappy game three games back and picked up two points, people laughed about how those are bouncing going his way. That's all I meant. It's good that bounces are going his way now.

When Cooley was out producing Slaf by a bigger margin earlier, Cooley’s PP point’s didn’t need context as ‘points are points’ but now Slaf’s production needs qualifiers.
It’s just real bad faith from a poster who is actually very intelligent and insightful.

I never contextualised their points, those detracting Cooley did it actually. Production is production. Again, please see my comment above. I didn't mean to disparage Slafkovsky whatsoever.

Slaf's assists will always be incidental with this guy, since he is neither a center nor the PP QB. Mucking around the front of the net, winning board battles, passing to the 1CV and sniping winger, a bit of Clark Gillies in him and still younger than when Gillies broke in.

Getting involved in the play means points will come, either as a function of his playmaking or incidentally to the playmaking. That's precisely what most of you guys were saying. Whatever works.

Thanks for pointing it out. I wasn't celebrating anything, I was providing additional context in terms of the complaint of Slaf's lack of production. Not surprising that the posters who couldn't care about context misinterpret my post and then all like each others circle jerk.

Your context is to bring up Alex Newhook, the guy who had 13 pts in 23 games, as a favorable milestone for Slafkovsky's 13 points in 36 games. Gimme a break.

 

[KevSkillz4]

Slaf is very impressive this year.

Even when he don't put points, we all see his total package. He is already one of the best passer in this team. His passing ability is very very good. The fact that he have a great shot and need to improve his instinct of scorer, imagine in 2 years when he is going to score goals with that shot. Potential to produce big numbers with his sick hands, great passing ability and his great shot.

He is a prototype of a star winger, the season isn't over, I'm confident that if he stay with Nick and Cole, these 3 will produce very good number by the end of the season!!

 

[dackelljuneaubulis02]

What did I twist? Comparing Slafkovsky's production with Newhook who's been out injured for 13 games, and praising it, is plain silly.


I didn't mean it in any nasty way but I accept that my reputation here might precede me. Slaf had a scrappy game three games back and picked up two points, people laughed about how those are bouncing going his way. That's all I meant. It's good that bounces are going his way now.


I never contextualised their points, those detracting Cooley did it actually. Production is production. Again, please see my comment above. I didn't mean to disparage Slafkovsky whatsoever.


Getting involved in the play means points will come, either as a function of his playmaking or incidentally to the playmaking. That's precisely what most of you guys were saying. Whatever works.


Your context is to bring up Alex Newhook, the guy who had 13 pts in 23 games, as a favorable milestone for Slafkovsky's 13 points in 36 games. Gimme a break.

Man come on. The point isn’t that it’s Newhook. Newhook is incidental. It’s that after a slow start point wise he’s now 5th on the team. It’s just noting the production has gotten better of late after bupkis for quite a few games. But yet again you make the most cynical reading of this statement.

It also points to the direction where he could be going. All these steps you marginalize for god knows what reason lol.

What’s the endgame here? You stop the cynicism when he’s a PPG? And just keep ‘so what-ing’ every step until he gets there? Then all the posters who saw this coming got ‘broken clock’ lucky?

Unless you’re really savouring this contrarian stance, I just really don’t get it

 

[vlady]

The total production is OK recently. But he’s not exploiting opportunities in the Ozone. Track the shifts of an NHL winger and you see they do everything they can with less offensive opportunities than Slaf.

Slaf is letting way too much on the table. Whether it’s not shooting, not taking the puck to the net, or passing to the wrong guy at the wrong time. Even with his sub-par shot release he could do much more.

Totally agree, he could have a lot more points if he was shooting more and/or taking the puck to the net. His finishing is pretty bad right now, but that only means there is plenty of room for improvement and he is a hard working kid, so I'm confident that this will get better.

He needs more confidence too. He tends to defer to his linemates even when he could carry the puck towards the net. Sometimes he rushes the finish as well, sign of lack of confidence in his finishing skills. Like yesterday when he shoveled a backhand rebound towards the net. He had plenty of room to take it to his forehand and get a good shot off.

Key takeaway: There are plenty of reasons to be excited about his future because these are things that can be fixed quite easily.

 

[dackelljuneaubulis02]

Totally agree, he could have a lot more points if he was shooting more and/or taking the puck to the net. His finishing is pretty bad right now, but that only means there is plenty of room for improvement and he is a hard working kid, so I'm confident that this will get better.

He needs more confidence too. He tends to defer to his linemates even when he could carry the puck towards the net. Sometimes he rushes the finish as well, sign of lack of confidence in his finishing skills. Like yesterday when he shoveled a backhand rebound towards the net. He had plenty of room to take it to his forehand and get a good shot off.

Key takeaway: There are plenty of reasons to be excited about his future because these are things that can be fixed quite easily.

This is how I see it. He’s a key contributor while still having glaring holes in his game as a 19 year old. That’s actually a good thing. It speaks to how high his ceiling could be.

 

[ReHabs]

Man come on. The point isn’t that it’s Newhook. Newhook is incidental. It’s that after a slow start point wise he’s now 5th on the team. It’s just noting the production has gotten better of late after bupkis for quite a few games. But yet again you make the most cynical reading of this statement.

He’s playing on the top line and he’s a 1OA pick have some respect for the team and the fans and apply some honest standards, please.

We’ve all noted the better production and better performances.

It also points to the direction where he could be going. All these steps you marginalize for god knows what reason lol.

What’s the endgame here? You stop the cynicism when he’s a PPG? And just keep ‘so what-ing’ every step until he gets there? Then all the posters who saw this coming got ‘broken clock’ lucky?

Unless you’re really savouring this contrarian stance, I just really don’t get it

Good comment.

I think it’s an over-developed reflex for sure but it is an honest reaction (therefore not contrarianism), I don’t think I’m alone in saying I cannot stand to see mismatched praise and performance. Not after ten years of Bergevin and Galchenyuk/Drouin/Kotkaniemi. I just want to see this guy play well and get commensurate praise and applause. So far it’s been a heaping amount of wishful thinking. I know you’ve been rational about it but there are commentators (and of course Kent Hughes and MSL) who can’t bring themselves to admit letting him eat hits last year was problematic.

It goes the other way too — we all hate to see overblown blame when the performance didn’t merit such intensity of criticism. Carey Price in that series against the Rangers, remember some Habs commentators tried to say he didn’t steal the series? It drove me up the wall. I was on Twitter then but it was just as bad.

I think it’s just perfect that Slaf was doing good and/or picking up points the last few games. Hopefully both, but either or is fine. He’s developing. We all want his development. Praising him for catching up to an injured player who’s been out for 13 games is just too much for me. It’s not like Newhook was burning the league either.

 

[Kennerback]

Not sure exactly what this is supposed to mean. As if all NHL players are somehow without warts and capitalize on every chance they get.

Do I agree that he's not as effective as I hope he would be? Of course. Do I wish that he scored yesterday on the two slot chances he had and the other golden opportunities in previous games? Yes, 100%.

He obviously needs to work on his finishing touch, as he's leaving a lot of points on the table, as you said. With that being said, at least he's getting those chances and we can only hope he develops into a player that buries those great scoring chances.


I think any insight that was to be gleaned from his posts vanished after the first 5.

Just to be clear I don’t mean he needs to produce, I’m saying he needs to make more of an effort to produce. That means either shooting or passing to someone that shoots. It means a lot less OZone passes to someone not in a position to shoot.
And if he can’t do that, he can physically force himself to the slot to do it.


As for tracking wingers in general, Slaf gets more often in good OZ situations than most players I track because he’s so big, fast, strong, with a long stick and a superior ability to move the puck up the ice. Say 3 to 1, but that one time, that typical winger switches in goal mode immediately, tries to exploit the situation. Slaf is there so much more often but he’s still in “pass the puck to someone who can’t shoot” mode.

 

[ReHabs]

He just turned 19 FFS with less than a season under his belt.

Four players from the 2023 draft, all four are rookies and younger than him, are outscoring Slafkovsky. They're all on bad teams too. The only thing unreal is how some of you insist we share in your delusional low standards and expectations AND you want us to all keep cheering on this tank that produces players of dubious star quality. Slafkovsky is a 1OA, if it was a weak draft or not, you cannot constantly drill down and lower the bar just to make him look better than he is. He's doing well playing on the first line next to Suzuki-Caufield, that's good enough without resorting to false praise.

Slaf's not trending to be the best of his 2022 draft, praising the fact he's "caught up" with Alex Newhook's 13pt total is silly and will be called out every time. If you disagree, you can simply accept that we have a difference of opinion.

He is finally playing well and the production has finally caught up too, we can all agree with that.

 

[Colezuki]

Four players from the 2023 draft, all four are rookies and younger than him, are outscoring Slafkovsky. They're all on bad teams too. The only thing unreal is how some of you insist we share in your delusional low standards and expectations AND you want us to all keep cheering on this tank that produces players of dubious star quality. Slafkovsky is a 1OA, if it was a weak draft or not, you cannot constantly drill down and lower the bar just to make him look better than he is. He's doing well playing on the first line next to Suzuki-Caufield, that's good enough without resorting to false praise.

Slaf's not trending to be the best of his 2022 draft, praising the fact he's "caught up" with Alex Newhook's 13pt total is silly and will be called out every time. If you disagree, you can simply accept that we have a difference of opinion.

He is finally playing well and the production has finally caught up too, we can all agree with that.

The 2023 draft? The one that was viewed as immensely more talented then 2022? Where the top 3 we’re all viewed as 1st overalls in any normal year? That draft?

 

[MTL Dirty Birdy]

I thought we’d be bottom ten at the start of the year. When Dach went down I thought… top five. And honestly that’s how we’ve played.

Goalies have been great and we’ve pulled points out from losses. I don’t expect that to continue but we’ll see.

We have so much talent that isn’t even on the roster yet. And we’ve had two top sixers we traded for get hurt just as they were heatIng up. Add in CC’s slump and it’s incredible we’re not bottom five already.

I’d add in the fact that Montreal is second in the league for goals by defence men. That also came out of nowhere

 

[Heffyhoof]

What did I twist? Comparing Slafkovsky's production with Newhook who's been out injured for 13 games, and praising it, is plain silly.


I didn't mean it in any nasty way but I accept that my reputation here might precede me. Slaf had a scrappy game three games back and picked up two points, people laughed about how those are bouncing going his way. That's all I meant. It's good that bounces are going his way now.


I never contextualised their points, those detracting Cooley did it actually. Production is production. Again, please see my comment above. I didn't mean to disparage Slafkovsky whatsoever.


Getting involved in the play means points will come, either as a function of his playmaking or incidentally to the playmaking. That's precisely what most of you guys were saying. Whatever works.


Your context is to bring up Alex Newhook, the guy who had 13 pts in 23 games, as a favorable milestone for Slafkovsky's 13 points in 36 games. Gimme a break.

Piss off. You write paragraphs of garbage pretending you provide anything more than the repeated cry of "10 points in 31 Ligaa games" just with different words. You're still willfully ignoring the point of my post, that both I and another clarified.

 

[Jaaanosik]

...

Slaf's not trending to be the best of his 2022 draft...

How do you know?
What are the 'units of measure'?

Claims like these make you look like a hater, are you?

 

[Guy Larose]

Four players from the 2023 draft, all four are rookies and younger than him, are outscoring Slafkovsky. They're all on bad teams too. The only thing unreal is how some of you insist we share in your delusional low standards and expectations AND you want us to all keep cheering on this tank that produces players of dubious star quality. Slafkovsky is a 1OA, if it was a weak draft or not, you cannot constantly drill down and lower the bar just to make him look better than he is. He's doing well playing on the first line next to Suzuki-Caufield, that's good enough without resorting to false praise.

Slaf's not trending to be the best of his 2022 draft, praising the fact he's "caught up" with Alex Newhook's 13pt total is silly and will be called out every time. If you disagree, you can simply accept that we have a difference of opinion.

He is finally playing well and the production has finally caught up too, we can all agree with that.

Your takes when it comes to him are just bad, period. Secondly, not every player progresses the same.

 

[Kennerback]

The 2023 draft? The one that was viewed as immensely more talented than 2022? Where the top 3 were all viewed as 1st overalls in any normal year? That draft?

Right now, it’s not the best take to critique Slafkofsky. Just an example:
Shane Wright (AHL): 25-10-7-17
Joshua Roy (AHL): 30-10-16-26
They were born 5 months apart from each other.

 

[Colezuki]

Right now, it’s not the best take to critique Slafkofsky. Just an example:
Shane Wright (AHL): 25-10-7-17
Joshua Roy (AHL): 30-10-16-26
They were born 5 months apart from each other.

I don't think any player is above critique, with that said I think a few people are being too difficult with him and he's taking significant positive steps this year.

2022 was just a tough draft to be 1st overall in, it is what it is

 

[KevSkillz4]

In 2023 draft, I would certainly select Slaf 5th. That's not bad that Bedard, Fantilli, Carlsson and Michkov are better. Slaf will be a more complete player than Will Smith. The Carolina podcasters said that he play like Andrei Svechnikov and going maybe even better. Taking a Svechnikov type at 1st overall in 2022, it's a really really good choice.

 

[Naslundforever]

19 years old player still has things to work on.

Stop the presses…

I feel working on your release in your teens must be one of the easiest skills. “Needs to work on his skating” would probably the silent killer…

 

[BenchBrawl]

Yep, I too would pick Slaf easily at 5th in the 2023 draft.

As of today, he would still be my 1st overall in the 2022 draft as well.

 

[Habricot]

The total production is OK recently. But he’s not exploiting opportunities in the Ozone. Track the shifts of an NHL winger and you see they do everything they can with less offensive opportunities than Slaf.

Slaf is letting way too much on the table. Whether it’s not shooting, not taking the puck to the net, or passing to the wrong guy at the wrong time. Even with his sub-par shot release he could do much more.

That is actually a big plus.. it means he has lots of room to grow and he will. Just be patient!

 

[Kennerback]

I don't think any player is above critique, with that said I think a few people are being too difficult with him and he's taking significant positive steps this year.

2022 was just a tough draft to be 1st overall in, it is what it is

Just to be clear, I don't think he's above critique. The only thing I'm saying is comparing him to the other 2022s or saying he was a bad pick is not the best argument to critique him at this specific point in time.